Jesus’ parables are seemingly simple and memorable stories, often with imagery, and all convey messages. Although these parables seem simple, the messages they convey are deep, and central to the teachings of Jesus. Many of Jesus’ parables refer to simple everyday things. This week we will discuss the first two parables Jesus taught which is found in Matthew 9:16, the parable of the “New Cloth Patch on an Old Coat” and Matthew 9:17, “New Wine in Old Wineskins”.
“No one sews a patch of unshrunk [new] cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse.” Matthew 9:16
“Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.” Matthew 9:17
Before discussing these two Parables, we need to first understand some of the background that is happening here. In verse 14, Jesus was being asked from the disciples of John the Baptist, why his disciples did not fast like they and the Pharisees do.
When Jews were fasting, it was to express personal humility and repentance and sought to speed up the arrival of the Messiah. The fact that Jesus disciples did not fast was a proclamation that the Messiah had already arrived. Also, even though fasting was not wrong, it was being taught that anyone who fell short in this action was less devout in their faith.
Jesus began His response in verse 15 with an analogy of a wedding that the guests do not mourn while celebrating with the groom, but once the groom is gone then they will fast. Jesus statement about being taken from them is an early indication that Jesus would not reign in His first coming. Jesus now begins His first two parables beginning in Verse 16.
In the parable of the New Cloth Patch on an Old Coat, an old garment would have shrunk after it has been worn for a while. A new patch of cloth, when first washed, would shrink and pull away from the older cloth. Jesus was saying, “Something new and unusual is happening. A new era is dawning, and the old methods do not apply. They are inappropriate while I, the Messiah-King, am here.”
Jesus was alerting his disciples to the fact that He was about to move further away from Israel as the chosen recipient of His message. Jesus indicated that His message of the new covenant was too fresh and vital to be attached to an old garment.
Jesus used the second parable, New wine in Old Wineskins, to underscore the same message as the old garment. When wine ferments, it gives off gasses that stretch the wineskins. The fresh leather can stretch and expand, but the older leather has already stretched as much as it can. Fresh wine in old wineskins would burst the old leather. Jesus indicated that Israel would not be able to handle Jesus’ truth. Israel was too rigid and unresponsive to carry His message to the world. God would use the church to accomplish that goal.
None of us likes to give up something familiar or comfortable. This is even more true when this “something” has been the controlling point for our view of reality, morality, and religion. We have a tendency to plug in a new good experience or teaching into our old religious context and make it fit. Jesus’ point here is that what he brings cannot be made to fit in the old order and old forms of religion with which the Jews were familiar. To do that would be destructive to both the old and the new. What Jesus brings is new, fresh, and transformational. It will rip apart anything that tries to force it into another way of doing, perceiving and experiencing. Becoming a Christ follower—a Christian—is a whole new life, not just another religion to be thrown into the world mix of faiths. This is as true today as it was 2,000 years ago. Jesus is saying he was the start of a new religion separate from Judaism, and even different from that of John the Baptist.