Luke 5:33 And they [the Pharisees and their scribes] said to him, “The disciples of John fast often and offer prayers, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink.” 34 And Jesus said to them, “Can you make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? 35 The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.” 36 He also told them a parable: “No one tears a piece from a new garment and puts it on an old garment. If he does, he will tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old. ESV
It seems quite a few cared about why Jesus’s disciples were not fasting. Let’s assume a good definition of fasting is a discipline to abstain from an ordinary practice [eating in this case] in order to direct the focus away from that practice to something very different; a connection to God in a private and humble way. If you’re doing it right who will ever even know or notice? This group of people has noticed and Jesus cares about that.
I’ve never heard anyone call fasting a celebration or a wedding a discipline but it seems clear what Jesus has in mind in this parable is to teach us to consider both focus and timing. There is a time to abstain from some ordinary things to focus on His presence in us being about more than adding a new patch to what is wearing out so it will last a little longer. And there is a time to remember we’re in His presence as honored guests at an extraordinary celebration. “Now you’re dressed in a new wardrobe. Every item of your new way of life is custom-made by the Creator, with his label on it.”a
a Colossians 3:10 MSG
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