A Question About Fasting. Jesus Has Come As The Promised Bridegroom (5:33-35).
The revelation of the glory of Jesus continues. Not only is He the Son of Man Who can forgive sins, and God's Physician Who can restore the outcast, but he is the Promised Bridegroom Who brings rejoicing and a new beginning for His people.
The revelation results from a mundane question about fasting. We can analyse this chapter as follows:
a They said to him, “The disciples of John fast often, and make supplications, likewise also the disciples of the Pharisees, But yours eat and drink” (Luke 5:33).
b Jesus said to them, “Can you make the sons of the bride-chamber fast, while the bridegroom is with them?
c But the days will come, and when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, then will they fast in those days” (Luke 5:34-35)
d He spoke also a parable to them, “No man tears a piece from a new garment and puts it on an old garment, or else he will tear the new, and also the piece from the new will not agree with the old” (Luke 5:36).
c And no man puts new wine into old wineskins, or else the new wine will burst the skins, and itself will be spilled, and the skins will perish” (Luke 5:37).
b “But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins” (Luke 5:38).
A And no man having drunk old wine desires new, for he says, “The old is good” (Luke 5:39).
Note that in ‘a' the disciples of John and the Pharisees prefer the old ways, and in the parallel those who drink old wine prefer it to the new. In ‘b' the sons of the bride-chamber opt for the new ways, and in the parallel new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. In ‘c' there is to be mourning because the Bridegroom will be taken away, and in the parallel the use of old wineskins with new wine result in a perishing. In ‘d' the central thought is that the old garment must not be patched with the new.