Here again we see how our Lord deals with views falling short of the truth. The moral creed of His [pg 220] countrymen was imperfect; it unduly exalted and obtruded formal duties, but it was all that they had; their whole life and that of their nation was moulded by it; instincts fostered by it had become hereditary, and to break it ruthlessly down would have been to lay waste men's souls.
In the instance before us our Lord introduces a freer practice; and trusts to this to give birth in time to more intelligent notions about the Sabbath day.
One passage in the history I purposely passed by. I thought that I might have to write of it at such a length as to break the continuity of the narrative, and I therefore kept it for the close of the chapter. The passage in question, which I subjoin, immediately follows the account of the entertainment of our Lord in Matthew's house.
“Then come to him the disciples of John, saying, Why do we and the Pharisees fast oft, but thy disciples fast not? And Jesus said unto them, Can the sons of the bride-chamber mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them? but the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then will they fast. And no man putteth a piece of undressed cloth upon an old garment; for that which should fill it up taketh from the garment, and a worse rent is made. Neither do men put new wine into old wine-skins: else the skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins perish: but they put new wine into fresh wine-skins, and both are preserved.”[151]
The Pharisees practised fasting on the second and fifth days of the week: the same practice was probably followed by the disciples of John; and if we suppose that Matthew made this feast on one of the fasting days, this would bring the contrast between the ways of John and of Jesus more sharply out.
Before examining the charge and the reply, a word must be said on the absence of all distinctive religious observances in the practice of our Lord and His disciples.
The Baptist, we know, enjoined stated fasts and taught his people to pray, and above all enforced the initiatory rite from which he drew his name. At a later period our Lord's disciples beg to be taught to pray, “as John also taught his disciples.”[152]
In those days people looked to a religion to order the externals of a man's life; hours of prayer portioned out his day; and so, even the disciples appear to have felt that with them there was something lacking, and that they were at a disadvantage compared with John's disciples because they were not, through conformity to a special rule, formed into a body and marked with a badge.
It is easy to find reasons why our Lord should have avoided doing what John did. If He had enjoined any system of religious observance, this would have limited the spread of His Kingdom, and have laid on observances in general more stress than He desired. One Law or one ritual would not suit all nations, or all times; for forms must vary with men's modes of life, and if our Lord had introduced a form of worship He would have particularised that which, of its very essence, was meant to be universal. John came as a prophet and forerunner, and he set on foot a sect, which was held together and long kept alive by usages of its own; but the very observances which gave it vitality as a sect prevented its ever becoming anything more than a sect. Our Lord is not founding a sect at all; He is not a missionary making converts. He comes on earth to proclaim that God loves men, and to open a way by which men should “come to the Father.” He leaves behind Him men suited to direct a religious movement, but He organises none himself. Whether He drew many round Him or few, His great work for the world would equally be completed on the Cross. He never baptised, never instituted rites, laws or fasts, or stated services of prayer; it is not till He leaves the earth that He enjoins the sacraments of His Church. It was to be left to men to put all into shape, for the outer form belongs to man; and, if He had Himself adopted any particular practice in [pg 223] any of the matters above named, men might imagine that this was binding for evermore and had a virtue in itself.
We come now to our Lord's plain and practical answer to the particular questions of the Pharisees which have led to these remarks. Fasting comes by nature when a man is sad, and it is in consequence the natural token of sadness: when a man is very sad, for the loss of relations or the like, he loses all inclination for food. But every outward sign that can be displayed at will is liable to abuse, and so men sometimes fasted when they were not really sad, but when it was decorous to appear so. Moreover a kind of merit came to be attached to fasting as betokening sorrow for transgressions; and at last it came to be regarded as a sort of self-punishment which it was thought the Almighty would accept in lieu of inflicting punishment Himself. Our Lord does not decry stated fasts or any other Jewish practices, they had their uses and they would last their times; only He points men to the underlying truth which was at the bottom of the ordinance.