16.04 | Container & Contents
Mark 2:18-3:6
‘Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. And people came and said to him, “Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day. …no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins—and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins. But new wine is for fresh wineskins.”’
Mark 2:18-20, 22
There’s lots of words that are used to describe the 1970s.
One that is never used is the word discipline. And yet, in 1978, Richard Foster first published a book that came to be known as one of the most influential Christian books of the 20th Century. The title was Celebration of Discipline, and advocated the use of ancient Christian practices (‘disciplines’) as a means of allowing God to cultivate a life of character, creativity and joy. In a cultural moment of hedonism, liberation, and self-actualisation, it was a radically countercultural message of quiet character formation, and steady consistency as an avenue to the healing and renewing of our desires, rather than simply looking to fulfil them all. And yet, it captured an essential need of humanity that was otherwise lost in a wider secular narrative that declared liberty but delivered dysfunction.
The ongoing impact of the book has been extraordinary, with other authors picking up similar themes,1 reconnecting millions of believers to ancient practices that expose our lives to the transforming power of God.
And it is two of the most ancient spiritual practices that come to our attention today.
Fasting.
And Sabbath.
And the specific issue is that Jesus and His disciples are not fasting.
And they’re not keeping the Sabbath (at least not in the way that the Pharisees understand it).
Characteristically, He gives them a parable to explain this. It’s an image that would have been familiar to his listeners—of wine and wineskins. As grape juice ferments to become wine, it releases gas. Hence, new wine, in that active process of fermentation, needed to be contained in stretchy, new wineskins. Putting new wine into a rigid old wineskins was like creating a minor explosive. The outcome would be destruction—of both the wine and the wineskin.
The issue is one of container and contents. The container has to be able to contain to the contents, or the outcome will be destruction.
Pushing Jesus’ metaphor, then, the practices are not the container; they’re the contents.
Please note: He’s not in any way against these practices. Quite the opposite.
‘…they will fast in that day.’
‘The Son of Man is lord … of the Sabbath.’
Fasting is good. The Sabbath is good.
Jesus’ words are not deconstructing the contents; they're about the container.
When we come to our own spiritual practices, the container of thought that we put them in is of great consequence. It is the difference between our practices existing in the exhausting paradigms of effort and achievement and earning and nitpicking, and them being freely chosen invitations into a life of greater depth and beauty and joy.
It is the difference between fasting being something harsh and mean that God inflicts upon us, to being an expression of loving desire for more of the presence of God.2
It is the difference between Sabbath being a list of prohibitions, and it being a walk in the sunshine with your rabbi, snacking on standing grain and allowing Him to bring the withered parts of our lives to life.
Contents and containers. Both are important. But Jesus’ words to us today invite us to realign all of our habits and all of our practices—including this very devotional you are reading now—under the stunning reality that you are already deeply loved; that all things have already been earned for you by the Cross of Jesus your Lord; and that every practice and habit of the heart is not demanded of you. Rather, each is an invitation to venture further into the measureless love of God for you that is found in His expansive world of grace.
Reflect:
What are the contents of my spiritual life?
How might they look differently, when I take them out of the container of achievement and religious requirements, and put them into the container of one who is eternally and perfectly loved?
Pray:
Father in heaven,
How to understand you?
You who demand all things of me,
And yet love me without condition;
You who aim for my perfection,
And yet meet me in the mire of my sin with perfect acceptance;
You who call me to the most radical discipline,
And yet who does so only in the environment of utter freedom.
You are not like anyone else.
And so, Father, I ask this of you.
Would you reform my thoughts to the container of grace—
That all I do and am and choose
Be held in the atmosphere of your love.
Root out of me all dead religion,
And every false idea of you,
That I may walk sunny Sabbaths in the freedom of your renewing love,
And channel my every hunger ever more
Towards the beauty of your presence.
In Jesus’ Name.
Amen
Old Testament:
For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:
Judges 6:1-8:3 | Proverbs 12:24-28
e.g. Dallas Willard, Robert Mulholland, and more recently John Mark Comer. John Mark’s resources at www.practicingtheway.org are an exceptional introduction to these ancient practices as a means of Christian transformation
For, as Jesus says, fasting makes no sense when God is already present. Fasting, therefore, is fasting for His presence. It is an abdication of other desires in favour of expressing and nurturing our deepest desire for more of Him.