Mark 2:17-22: a reflection

17When Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are healthy have no need for a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” 18John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting, and they came and asked him, “Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples don’t fast?” 19Jesus said to them, “Can the groomsmen fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they can’t fast. 20But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day. 21No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, or else the patch shrinks and the new tears away from the old, and a worse hole is made. 22No one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine will burst the skins, and the wine pours out, and the skins will be destroyed; but they put new wine into fresh wineskins.”

When the religious leaders grumble that Jesus eats with sinners, he answers with a memorable line: those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I came to call not the righteous but sinners. Jesus does not come as a reward for the good but as a doctor for the ailing. The people the respectable crowd looked down on were precisely the ones he came to seek. Awareness of your sickness is the door to his help.

Then, asked why his disciples do not fast, Jesus speaks of a wedding: you cannot fast while the bridegroom is with you. His coming is a celebration, not a funeral. And he adds two small parables, about a patch of new cloth on an old garment and new wine in old wineskins. What he brings cannot simply be stitched onto the old religious system; it is too alive, too new. The gospel is not a repair to the old life but a whole new garment, a new wine that needs new skins.

Both images invite you to receive Jesus as he actually comes. Do not hold back from him because you feel too sick; that is exactly why he came. And do not try to patch his grace onto an unchanged old life, keeping your old self and merely adding a little religion. He offers something new, his own life poured into you. Come to the physician with your sickness, and let him make you new rather than merely mended.

Lord Jesus, you came not for the healthy but the sick, not for the righteous but for sinners like me. Thank you that my need is the very reason you came. Do not let me try to patch your grace onto an unchanged life; make me new instead. Pour your new life into me, and let me receive you with the joy of a wedding, glad that the bridegroom has come. Amen.