The Gospel of Mark 2:13-22 is about new things brought by Jesus the Messiah. First, we see Levi, a man despised in his community, given a whole new life in Christ. Levi was a tax collector for the Roman Empire, a position highly resented by the Jewish community. Tax collectors, or publicans, were employed by the Roman Empire and were legally endorsed extortionists, allowed to retain whatever revenue they collected above Rome’s part. The Jews considered publicans to be among the lowest of the low in society, along with prostitutes, lepers, and Gentiles. But one day, while sitting at his tax office, Jesus came and said to Levi, “Follow me.” Levi left his lucrative career and followed the Master. He was given a new life in Christ and a new name: Matthew. He became one of Jesus’ twelve apostles and wrote the New Testament Gospel of Matthew.
Next, Levi held an august dinner party in Jesus’ honor, also attended by scribes and Pharisees, who criticized Jesus for befriending the outcasts of society: tax collectors and “sinners.” Jesus turned the tables on his critics and taught one of his famous parables. Old wineskins cannot contain new wine without bursting, and an old garment cannot support a patch of new cloth without tearing. The lesson was that the glorious new covenant of Christ’s kingdom was so great in comparison to the old covenant that the old could not contain it and was passing away.
Read the full sermon transcript below!
This morning, we return to our series of sermons from the New Testament Gospel of Mark. From the very beginning of this inspired record, Mark has shown to his readers—in the ancient day and our own—that Jesus the Son of God is in fact the Messiah. The Hebrew people had longed and prayed for the promised one—the meshiach, messiah, the anointed, the Christ—who would come to redeem Israel. But they hadn’t quite understood how far-reaching the salvation brought by the Christ would be. Jesus came not just to Israel’s aid but to establish his kingdom on the earth and to begin what is now, the already millennia-long progress of redeeming the world.
Such a reality was completely unexpected by the religious leaders and theologians of the Jewish church. One of the things that really upset their applecart was that Jesus came to abrogate and rescind the old way of doing things—no more animal sacrifices, no more priesthood, not even a temple remaining.
What they did not see was that Jesus came not just to annul the old way but to introduce into the world a completely new way. The old covenant was coming to a close, and the glorious new covenant was unfolding in the world. And Jesus was and is the Lord, King, and Redeemer in the new covenant and all its saving benefits that we now enjoy.
The blood of bulls and goats, explains the author of the New Testament book Hebrews, can no longer take away sins. God gave his own Son to provide the sacrifice of our forgiveness, redemption, and salvation through his own atoning blood and justifying righteousness.
This morning’s sermon text explains that arrival of the new. First, we see a despised man in his community given a whole new life. Then Jesus explains that such redemption has come to the whole world in the newly begun new covenant of which he is the mediator. In these verses before us, Jesus teaches a highly valuable lesson that the people still living in the old covenant era of his day so desperately need to understand, as our sermon title states, the new is better.
In the first part of our sermon, we see a man radically changed from a social outcast into a beloved and devoted follower of Jesus, even later becoming one of the principal authors of the New Testament. We know him by the name Matthew, but before his encounter with Jesus, his name was Levi. Levi was a tax collector, and in the opening verses of our text, we find Jesus walking by the sea where Levi’s tax office sat.
Along the trade route, which ran through Israel, between Syria to the north and Egypt to the south, several stations were set up to collect taxes from traveling merchants and the general citizenry. Tax collectors, or publicans as they were also called, were despised people in Jewish society. And when you consider how they made their living, it is easy to see why they were so unpopular.
For one thing, the nature of their profession put them in cahoots with Rome, and Israel strongly resented being under Imperial Roman power. The Romans had a devious but quite effective means of collecting revenue. They contracted out the collection work, not to the lowest bidder but to the highest. The winner of the bid paid the government the amount of revenue he contracted to collect in a certain region. The sweet spot of the deal was that whatever the publican collected beyond his bid was his to keep.
Such a system was fertile ground for coercive, organized corruption, crime, and greed—all of which there was in no small amount. Tax collectors were legal extortionists who made themselves filthy rich from other people’s money. They were considered among the lowest of the low in Jewish society, ostracized and loathed. That was the price Levi willingly paid in order to be wealthy.
Lest we judge hypocritically, it might be well for all of us to ponder a most important question: What are we sacrificing to have the blessing of the Western god of wealth? What are people taking away from our spouses, our children, our families, and the future so that we can gather and add more to our personal treasures? What among the things that really matter—time with our family, a virtuous upbringing for our children, taking time to teach our children the ways of the Lord from Holy Scripture… What things like these do we sacrifice for the sake of bigger houses, shinier cars, bigger toys, more recreation and amusement? Most Americans—including ourselves—need to ponder that question while beseeching the Holy Spirit to reveal truth to us and lead us in it.
Levi’s New Life
Regarding Levi, something must have been happening in his heart, that secret place that only God can see. The Holy Spirit was at work in Levi, bringing him to perceive the depths of his guilty depravity and turning his convicted heart and the hopeful eyes of his soul to the only one who could liberate that poor rich man from the prison of his own sinful, greedy materialism.
Levi must have been watching Jesus closely, already filled with God-given new faith, because when Jesus walked up to where Levi was sitting at his tax office and said to him, “Follow me,” there was no hesitation. Levi got up, left behind his lucrative occupation and all that he had, and followed Jesus.
That is what it takes, you know, to be a follower of Jesus Christ—full devotion to the Master. Jesus said, “Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also” (John 12:25-26).
Although our circumstances and Levi’s are different in their particulars, the general requirement is the same. Once Levi left his way of life to serve Jesus, he could never go back. He left it all behind for a new life—a new life of faith and repentance, following Jesus. Repentance requires that we turn from our life of sin and follow the paths of righteousness in obedience to our master Jesus, no matter the cost. Are you willing to commit yourself to Jesus in this way? If so, your life will be changed forever.
Why Does He Associate with Low People?
Levi was so happy about his new relationship with Jesus that he decided to throw a party and celebrate. He invited his presumably shady friends over to his house for a great feast in Jesus’ honor. These were probably, for the most part, a motley collection of financially successful, white-collar ne’er-do-wells. Mark tells us in v. 15 that Jesus came to the feast at Levi’s invitation, probably a dinner in his honor, but that many tax collectors and sinners also sat together with Jesus as his disciples.
Somewhere in the vicinity was a group of scribes and Pharisees who criticized Jesus and his disciples. They didn’t like what they saw, and they had a question for Jesus’ disciples, in effect: Why does he associate with low people? Notice v. 16: And when the scribes and Pharisees saw him eating with the tax collectors and sinners, they said to his disciples, “How is it that he eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners?”
For the Jews, sharing a meal at a table was an expression of close fellowship, but the influential members of society, like the Pharisees, deemed various classes of people not fit for close affiliation. Certain people were considered unclean: shepherds, prostitutes, Samaritans and other Gentiles, and tax collectors.
Jewish religious leaders didn’t share tables with such presumably low-class people. They believed that keeping oneself pure and unspoiled by separating from the “unclean ones” was an act of devotion to God. But now here is this dynamic new teacher, Jesus, the talk of society, who was publicly crossing the lines. That was scandalous to “respectable” folk.
The Jewish leaders and others in that day didn’t understand the true nature of God’s kingdom. God had created humanity in the very beginning for the purpose of mankind’s worshiping and serving God and enjoying communion and fellowship together. Jesus had come to restore to God’s kingdom what man’s sin had deducted from it. Through Jesus, God draws near to us, and we draw near to him and to our brothers and sisters in Christ. Through Jesus, God is with us, and his Spirit is even in us. So the idea is not separation but togetherness.
This close and intimate relationship with God requires that we must first be reconciled to God through the removal of the guilt of our sin. We must believe in the restoring power of Jesus’ atoning death on the cross, and by faith accept him as our own and only means of righteousness.
To have faith in Jesus for our cleansing, we must first understand that we are unclean—morally unclean by nature. And that we must have the forgiveness and salvation that God offers us through Jesus. Thus, our Lord’s response to the critical allegations of his enquirers was (v. 17): “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did come not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
The problem with the scribes and Pharisees is the same as with people everywhere in whatever era of history, including our own time. They were sick unto death with the guilt of their own sin, but saw themselves as righteous and morally well.
Jesus had come as a physician of the soul to bring spiritual healing to the sick. Only those who are aware of their disease can comprehend their need for a doctor and a cure. Jesus alone can provide the healing forgiveness we must have in order to be restored to spiritual fellowship with our Father in Heaven.
Why Does He Not Follow Religious Traditions?
The Pharisees must not have been satisfied with Jesus’ response to their first criticism, because some time later they posed a second question, summarized in effect: “Why does he not follow our religious traditions?” Mark records in v. 18: The disciples of John and the Pharisees were fasting. Then they came and said to him, “Why do the disciples of John and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?”
Luke, in his gospel record, explains further that the question had to do not merely with the present circumstances but with frequent ongoing practices (Luke 5:33): Then they said to him, “Why do the disciples of John fast often and make prayers, and likewise those of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink?”
Matthew records that some of John the Baptist’s disciples posed the same question to Jesus (Matthew 9:13): Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?”
Perhaps John’s disciples and the Pharisees came to Jesus together(?). We don’t know that, but both of these groups practiced asceticism, meaning that they subjected themselves to abstaining from certain things that were pleasurable to a person, depriving the body in order to nurture the spirit.
Fasting and focused prayer are very good spiritual disciplines when done with proper attitudes and for the right reasons. Jesus advocated fasting, practiced it himself, and taught his followers to do it. Yet, while Jesus was still present in the world, walking with his disciples, he did not compel his disciples to the rigidity of frequent fasting, and that seemed quite odd to the Pharisees. They fasted twice a week and, ironically, boasted about it.
Jesus explained that his disciples, while he was present with them, had very good reasons to abstain from fasting. The Bible explains the living relationship of mutual love between Christ and his church in terms of marriage, a husband and wife. The church is a beautiful bride lavishly adorned for her groom, who is Jesus. The redeemed fellowship and communion we enjoy with our Lord are described as a sumptuous spiritual feast with mutual love and great joy.
Weddings are a big event in any life, and were often extravagantly celebrated in the ancient Jewish culture. Weddings were accompanied by a party, which often lasted an entire week, as friends ate and drank and laughed and danced to the joy of the newlywed happy couple. No one fasted at a wedding celebration. People didn’t greet the new bride and groom with solemnity and somberness.
Jesus is the groom and husband of his blessed church, and he was physically, visibly, and really present right there with the people he had come to redeem—his glorious bride. Wouldn’t it be quite incongruous for the bride to be fasting and mourning in the company of the groom, who was and is even the prince of life? Jesus explained that the day would come when his disciples would fast, speaking of his death and following, when he would no longer be physically with them. But while he was with his beloved was no time to feast.
So, what about us today? Do we feast or fast? Both. We feast with our Lord every time we worship him, every time we call upon him, whenever we commune with him in spirit. We attend a special feast when we all gather in our Lord’s presence on the Lord’s Day, and especially when we come to his table of communion.
Philip Ryken comments, “We are called to feast with him at his holy table, sharing the fellowship of his body and blood. But this is also a time for fasting. The day is coming when we will sit down together at what the Bible calls “the marriage supper of the Lamb” (Rev. 19:9)—the eternal feast that God has planned for us to celebrate with Jesus. But that day has not yet come. We are still waiting for our bridegroom, and until he returns, we fast and pray for [his coming]. We have a hunger for joy that will not be satisfied until Jesus comes again.”
Why Do You Cling to the Old Way When the New Way Is Better?
Jesus more than sufficiently responded to both points of opposition levied against him by the Pharisees: “Why do you associate with low people?” He explained that. “Why do you not follow our religious traditions?” He stifled that point of contention, too. Then, Jesus turns the tables. He lays out before his opponents one of the great principles of his present Messianic world kingdom, specifically that it is so much better. The new is better than the old, Jesus explains, which by implication placed a probing question before the Pharisees: “Why do you insistently cling to the old way when the new way is so much better?
Jesus illustrated this great kingdom principle by way of a parable. Everyone in Jesus’ audience knew that if you had an old garment that needed patching, you didn’t take a piece of new cloth and sew it onto the old. With washing and wearing, the new cloth would shrink, drawing up and pulling away from the old, preshrunk garment. You would end up with another tear, maybe worse than before. The old and the new are not compatible, they don’t match, and they can’t work well together. The new—when speaking of God’s covenant—is better than the old.
In that ancient day when people made wine to be stored through the winter, which necessitated that it be preserved by fermentation, they would pour the wine into an animal skin that served as a bottle. Once the skin was filled with new wine, the neck was closed. Over the course of time, due to continuing fermentation, the wine would expand, and the wineskin would stretch. If a wineskin had already been used once, having stretched and become thinner, it was risky to put wine in it for a second season, because the skin might not withstand further expansion. The skin could burst, and all the wine would be ruined. New wine had to be put into a new wineskin; an old skin couldn’t contain the new. The new is better than the old.
The Jewish religious leaders didn’t understand the nature of Jesus’ newly arriving and unfolding messianic kingdom, as he points out in vv. 21-22: “No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; or else the new piece pulls away from the old, and the tear is made worse. 22 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine bursts the wineskins, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But new wine must be put into new wineskins.”
Luke’s account adds something interesting that Mark did not include. Jesus further explains (5:39): “No one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, “The old is better.” Normally, this is the case; old wine that has aged is better than new wine. Jesus applied this to the way the religious leaders compared the old covenant to the new. They were convinced that the old was better than the new. Jesus, however, turned their entire paradigm upside down. In the case of the new Messianic kingdom, the new was better.
The Jews had already made up their minds and were unwilling even to try the new wine of salvation in Jesus. No, thank you, they would cling to their old, dead, humanly invented, self-imposed ordinances which could never make anyone right with God. Things in Jesus’ kingdom were very different from the usual nature of things with which they were familiar.
The great principle of Christ’s kingdom that is being taught here is that the new has come and is better than the old, so out with the old and in with the new. Now that the Messiah had come and the new covenant was opening, people could never live the same way they had in the old era of redemptive history in God’s world.
The new creation Jesus began in the world was incomparably more excellent and encompassing. The Jewish religious leaders thought the Messiah’s kingdom would be filled with people just like them, or at least the kind of people they thought they were. How radically different is Jesus’ new kingdom! Jesus’ new kingdom is populated by an unlikely citizenry, illustrated by Jesus’ desire to reach out to the despised people like tax collectors, prostitutes, and Samaritans. Furthermore, Jesus’ new kingdom is not just for the Hebrew people, but for all nationalities and all kinds of people throughout the world.
Jesus’ kingdom is not about its believing citizens thinking how righteous they are while criticizing and ostracizing the non-citizens, as the Jews did when they saw Jesus fellowshipping with the so-called sinners. No, it is about understanding how sinful we ourselves truly are until God graciously accepts us as righteous on account of Jesus, who gave his life for us. We trust in Jesus’ righteousness as our own and only right standing with God, and we are to invite others to become fellow citizens with us.
Christian, You Are Part of Something Great
Jesus’ new kingdom is not about mourning our failures, carrying them around for the rest of our lives like heavy burdens of guilt. Jesus’ kingdom is about casting off the condemnation of our sins, leaving them behind us, and living joyfully in the glorious light of God’s pardoning forgiveness and love. Jesus’ kingdom is not about self-imposed harsh ordinances, as with the Pharisees, who thought that by their frequent fasting and asceticism they could tally up points with God. Jesus’ kingdom is not about how many restrictions we can invent to burden people with feelings of guilt.
Once, as I sat in the dentist’s chair, a hygienist shared with me her facetiously stated theory of ethics: “If it feels good, tastes good, or it’s fun, it’s sin,” she smiled and said. That appears to be what the Pharisees thought, but they were quite mistaken. Even the old covenant wasn’t about such legalism as they had invented. No, it was filled with feasts, festivities, and celebrations. Jesus’ new covenant kingdom is the same, yet even better (Romans 14:17): For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men.
The kingdom Jesus introduced into this world, over which he reigns with all authority in heaven and on earth, is the greatest force of change this world has ever seen. The world has never been the same since Jesus came. Think about it. What brought an end to the ancient (and not so ancient) practice of legal chattel slavery in the world? What brought it to an end? The good news of the kingdom, heralded by the church.
What has brought an end to, or at least greatly inhibited, many harsh forms of criminal punishment, thereby greatly reducing injustice in so many lands? Thankfully, where the gospel of Christ has been thoroughly established, people are no longer sentenced to cruel and unusual punishments like being burned alive or hanged, drawn, and quartered. What brought the change? The good news of the kingdom has taken root through the ministry of the church.
What force has brought an end to tyrannical monarchies and has exerted an influence that has toppled many totalitarian regimes in the world? The gospel of Christ’s kingdom, entrusted to the church.
A few years ago, there existed an alliance of atheist scholars who were dubbed the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. They liked bashing Christian faith and the church in their lectures and presentations. You don’t know how I wished they would debate a really sharp biblical apologist. Someone like Greg Bahnsen would have made them look foolish.
There was, however, one of them in particular for whom I always held out some hope and prayed for him till he died—Christopher Hitchens. He authored a book titled God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.
That is what he claimed to believe—that religion poisons everything it touches in the world, so the world would be better off without it. But interestingly, I once watched an interview of Hitchens, in which the interviewer posed a very interesting question that painted him into a corner.
He asked Hitchens, in words to this effect, “If there were a way for the church to be completely removed from the world, would you like to see it gone?”
He thought for a moment before he answered, then replied in effect, “No, I wouldn’t. As strange as it may sound, I would not want to see the church disappear from the world. Because the church can accomplish things of which no other institution is capable. It was the church that brought Western slavery to an end. It was the church that led the American civil rights movement. It was the church that ended Apartheid in South Africa. The church is able to do things in the world that no other entity can do.”
At that moment, even though he was an avowed atheist, my estimation of Hitchens as an honest scholar climbed. That was quite an admission for the man who wrote the book on how religion allegedly poisons everything in the world and how much better the world would be without it.
The kingdom of Christ is so incomparably and inimitably great that when pushed into a corner, even his enemies—if they are honest like Hitchens was at that moment—must confess its power and glory and goodness. This truth is what prompted the New Testament writer to declare that at the final judgment every knee will bow…and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
If you are one of Christ’s redeemed, then you are a part of the most exciting and powerful force ever to be established on this earth. However, to be a citizen of this kingdom means that you, too, must leave the old behind and embrace the new. Like Levi, who left his old life and all that he had in order to follow Jesus in a new life, you too must leave the old life behind.
And why would you not? The new life is so much better. The new life is received by faith in Jesus’ atoning death on the cross to take away your sin. The new life is lived by the power of God’s Spirit in you, who also raised Christ from the dead. Just as Christ was raised from the dead to a new life through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. And the new is so much better, incomparably better, than the old. Embrace the new and rejoice in it!