CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
Mark 2:18. Used to fast.—Were fasting, on that very day.
Mark 2:20. Taken away.—There lurks in the original expression a hint of the violence and pain with which the separation would be fraught.
Mark 2:21. A piece of new cloth.—A patch of undressed cloth. “The patch supposed is an unfulled piece of cloth. It is the business of the fuller to make the cloth full and compact by precipitating the process of contraction.”
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Mark 2:18-22
(PARALLELS: Matthew 9:14-17; Luke 5:33-39.)
“The children of the bridechamber.”—Marriage, if any time, is a season of festivity and joy. To promote these purposes is the object of inviting certain friends of the bride and bridegroom to attend its celebration. To fast or assume a stern aspect on such an occasion would be little short of an insult. Now Christ here compares Himself to the bridegroom, and His disciples to these companions or friends. The Baptist had suggested the same comparison before (John 3:29). His disciples stood and heard Him all the time of His sojourning upon earth, and rejoiced greatly because of His voice. That was their holiday-time. If it was not so to the world at large, to the Pharisees, etc., it was because they were not of the Bridegroom’s party.
I. The character of Christians, as “children of the bridechamber.”—This implies—
1. Dignity. This is an honourable office. Those whom a man invites to his wedding are not merely his friends, but such friends as he specially delights to honour. And are not Christians highly honoured by being chosen out of the rest of mankind to receive” the light of the knowledge,” etc. (2 Corinthians 4:6)? See also 1 Peter 2:9; John 15:16. “This honour have all His saints,” by the mere circumstance of their election; but this is greatly enhanced if we consider what it is they are elected to (Romans 8:17). The “children of the bridechamber,” though they performed many personal offices for the bridegroom, were yet far from being considered in the light of menials, but rather of equals and companions: and so says the Saviour to His disciples (John 15:14-15).
2. Subordination to and entire dependence upon Christ. The “children of the bridechamber” have no existence but in relation to the bridegroom (John 3:29). Even so Christians are absolutely nothing without Christ (John 15:5). What a ridiculous character is a friend of the bridegroom thrusting himself forward as a principal person, acting an independent part, pretending to be something when he is nothing, instead of taking every opportunity of exalting and magnifying the bridegroom, even at his own expense! And such is the Christian who glories in himself, or fails to refer everything to his Lord and Master.
3. Duties and responsibilities. The “children of the bridechamber” must be always in waiting. While the term of their service lasts they are a part of the family, and the bridegroom’s house is their home. So Christians attend continually upon the Saviour; “follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth”; wait on Him in the way of His judgments, ordinances, sacraments; ever “looking unto Jesus,” and conforming their life and temper to the example set by Him.
II. The general temper of Christians, as rejoicing in the Lord always (Mark 2:19).—
1. The presence of the Divine Bridegroom, the converse of Him who spake as never man spake, was to our Lord’s immediate followers as a continual feast.
2. The same should now be true of Christians in general; for although, in one sense, the Bridegroom is taken away from us, where is He? See 1 Peter 3:22. This cannot be the “taking away” to which He refers, as an occasion of mourning to His friends; since He Himself said, at another time (John 14:28). Not only if we love Him, but if we love ourselves, we shall rejoice at this temporary separation. Whatever accession of dignity or influence accrues to the Bridegroom, His friends are sure to reap the benefit of it. Nor, because He is in heaven, is He the less present with us on earth. This is a great mystery, but an infallible and most comfortable truth. See John 14:18-19; Matthew 28:20.
III. The occasional seasons when Christians mourn and fast.—
1. This cannot refer to any temporal afflictions; for we are expressly told that no worldly tribulation or distress is able to separate us from the Saviour; but that it is in the nature of such things rather to endear Him to us the more, and to make us the more worthy of His love.
2. We must therefore understand by these words times of spiritual trouble and heaviness, such as will occasionally happen, in this imperfect state, even to those who have the best reason to “abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost.” The Bridegroom Himself had such seasons. See Matthew 4:1-2; Mark 14:33-36. It is evident, then, that our spiritual garments will not be always white, and that tears may be shed in a bridal chamber. Let us, at such seasons, have recourse to the divinely appointed means of grace, in the assured confidence that, if rightly improved, these occasional interruptions of our wonted cheerfulness will minister to our more abundant consolation in the end.
3. Hitherto we have had in view those dark and distressing times of the soul which come unsought, of which we cannot give a satisfactory account, and which it is our duty as much as possible to bear up against. Other times there are when we should rather invite than resist the entrance of sad thoughts into our hearts. The solemn season of Lent is one of these, and especially the Holy Week with which it ends, when we commemorate the Passion and Death of our Redeemer.
Fasting.—It is quite clear, to start with, that no practice of this kind can be an end in itself; it must be a means: equally clear that it must be a spiritual means to a spiritual end—a means by which the spirit may control the body, so as to fashion it into its noble destiny of being a spiritual body; that so the whole man may be moulded for the service, and, in some sense, into the likeness, of God, who is a Spirit.
I. It is a method of bodily discipline.—It aims at making us like God, who is a Spirit, and who, as such, is superior to and able to control material things. It trains us in the power of detachment, in the power of saying “No,” not only to the sins of the flesh, but to its indulgences; it recalls the command, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God,” and the example, “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me”; it keeps the body braced for action, and prevents luxuries from growing into necessities. It is in St. Leo’s favourite phrase a “præsidium,” a protection to the spirit against the encroachments of the body—asking us, with importunate persistency, whether we have our body well in hand, whether we should be ready for a call to do missionary work in some part of the Master’s kingdom which is not yet civilised. We need this protection for our own sakes, with its reminder of the need of fasting from all sin; and we need it also for the sake of the poor and of the Church, that we may have the means and the will to help their necessities. It is interesting to note that, in the recently discovered Apology of Aristides, one of the characteristics attributed to the early Christians is that, if they have not enough money to help a poor brother, they fast two or three days, that they may supply the needy with their necessary food; and St. Leo constantly insists on the duty of a liberal benevolence being the accompaniment of fasting. Detachment, bodily discipline, sympathy with the poor, liberality—these are virtues which spring from fasting; yet most assuredly fasting did not spring from the desire for them. We shall miss its true value if we stop at these. We must go deeper still.
II. It is also the expression of sorrow—and, for the Christian, of sorrow for sin: it becomes thus a great training in the true nature of penitence and the right purposes of sorrow. Why was it that our Lord expected His apostles to fast? It was because He was to be taken away from them. And why was He taken away? Because of sin. The Incarnation, which might have been like a perpetual joyous intercourse of Bridegroom and bride, was marred and checked by sin. And in what sense can the Bridegroom be said to be taken away from us now, so that we should mourn? He is gone wherever our sin has grieved His Spirit and driven Him from our hearts. The Christian life should be one of joyous service, of conscious spiritual communion with the Master; and who can say how different it is for many of us, with selfishness and ill-will marring its beauty, so that we get only now and then faint glimpses of what a loyal and loving service of the Master might be? Now the reason of this is sin, our own sin, our past sin, our present sin, whereby we have crucified the Son of God afresh. Friday has to be a Good Friday in every week, giving us time and quiet to learn “that individual and detailed knowledge of our own personal sinfulness, whence the real love of our Redeemer can alone flow.” The most fatal enemy of the spiritual life is self-complacency, and the recurring fast day is our protection against this; “the wound of our just remorse needeth touching” very often. We need to be reminded that nothing less than the Death of the Son of God was sufficient to redeem us from our sins, that those sins were real acts of our own will affecting our whole nature, so that we can never be as though we had not sinned, but must always be penitent before God, always on our guard against the temptations which have proved fatal to us, prepared beforehand for any suffering which God may send us in consequence of our sins, and willing to welcome it as His means of purifying our souls. It is not—God forbid!—that the atonement on the Cross was insufficient; but it is that we ought to feel and act as those whom He has redeemed, to share His hatred for sin, to war against it actively in our own persons—to be like our God, who is a consuming fire.
III. The reason for common Church fasts on fixed days.—George Herbert has tersely put it, “The Scriptures bid us fast, the Church says now”; and the reason for this is not only that so brother helps brother to keep up his spiritual life, and that the common action of the Church is more prevailing with God, like its common prayer, but it is also a reminder that we have to be not self-centred in our penitence, but to fast and sorrow for the sins and shortcomings of the whole Church.
IV. Fasting does not end in itself; it is always in the Church’s system a preparation. It was the preparation for baptism as early as the second century. An almost universal instinct has regarded it as the fit approach to the Holy Communion. After Friday comes Sunday with its worship and Communion. After Lent comes Easter. This fact seems to say: grief, weakness, sin—these are not the end. We sorrow that we may know the power of the Resurrection; we feel the touch of human weakness that we may rest on spiritual strength, and know that power is perfected in weakness; we recall our sinfulness that we may realise the love of the Atonement. Fasting does for us the work which that good man, the clergyman, did for the simple maiden in Tennyson’s poem: “He showed me all the mercy, for he showed me all the sin.” And it keeps joy Christian. Christian joy has to stand in relation to Christian grief. If we have learnt to grieve for sin, we shall rejoice for the triumph of righteousness. If we have mourned for the failures of the Church, our joy will rise above selfish family prosperity into delight in the progress of the Church.
V. Two words of caution.—
1. Remember Mr. Keble’s advice, “Keep a medical conscience, either in your own bosom or in that of some friend who may be trusted.” “Fasting sometimes causes a distressing reaction: if you have reason to fear that, you had better use hard and unpleasant diet than actually going without.”
2. It was especially in connexion with fasting that our Lord insisted on the break with the old spirit of Judaism. Our fasting may not be a mere form—a desire to win God’s favour—a trust in ourselves. It must be done in love and gratitude, with desire to imitate our Lord, with prayer to Him that it may be united with His fasting, and get all its virtue from Him.—W. Lock.
OUTLINES AND COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Mark 2:18. A common evil.—It is a posed persons observe such days of Pharisaic and very common evil that men are very much more troubled about setting others right in their living than about correcting their own.—Starke.
The busybody begins by talking about others, and comes afterwards to himself but makes the best of his own case (1 Timothy 4:8).—P. Quesnel.
All men not alike.—It is spiritual pride when, in matters which God has left to our freedom, people try to make others regulate themselves by their rules. What benefits one man’s soul may harm another’s.
Mark 2:20. The right use and end of fasting.—When godly and well-disposed persons observe such days of abstinence in a right manner, and to a right end; when they look upon fasting not as an essential part of natural or revealed religion, but only as an auxiliary or instrumental duty; when they do not rest in it as absolutely and in itself good, but make use of it as a proper help for the better performance of those duties, which are strictly and properly acts of religious worship; when they do not acquiesce in the bare outward performance of this duty, or think they have discharged it as they ought, till by the use of these means, and God’s blessing upon them, they have attained those graces, to which these means ought to be subservient; when they strive thereby to mortify the flesh, and to subdue the lusts thereof, to spiritualise the soul, and to dispose it for more exalted acts of devotion; when to these ends they choose to set apart those days which they find have been set apart to the same ends by the generality of Christians in all ages; when they are willing to keep up a custom which they find hath been kept up by all or by most of the Churches of God; when they dutifully comply with the usages of that Church in which they live, and are afraid of despising the lawful commands of their superiors; when, how strict soever they are towards themselves, they are not rigorous in their censures of others who do not think themselves bound to the same observances; when they do not hope by abstinence at some times of the year to compound for criminal excesses at other times, but are temperate and sober through the whole course of their lives, and at some stated periods sequester themselves more than usually from the business and from the pleasures of this world, that they may more freely and uninterruptedly attend to the concerns of the next; when they are in their consciences fully persuaded that one day or one meat of itself is not more holy, more pure, or more clean than another, but that all days and all meats be of their own nature of one equal purity, cleanness, and holiness, and yet on some days abstain from some meats not as in themselves unlawful, but as less subservient to the keeping under the body and bringing it into subjection; when they do not rigorously tie themselves up to fixed and unchangeable rules, from which they may in no case swerve, to the ensnaring and perplexing of their consciences, but in things of themselves indifferent use such a latitude as may neither entrench too much on Christian liberty, nor on the other side open a gap to licentiousness,—when, I say, sober, judicious, and devout Christians observe the fasts of the Church with these cautions, restrictions, and limitations, such an observance cannot be justly accused of superstition, cannot indeed be condemned without superstition. Such an abstinence as this our Church recommends; such, if we shall practise with the same intentions, with the same piety and moderation, as she recommends it, we shall thereby reap great benefit to our souls, and the better prepare and dispose them for the reception of God’s grace here, and the communication of His glory in the world to come.—Bishop Smalridge.
Mark 2:21. Consequences of false conservatism in the Church.—
1. These attempts at tailoring in spiritual matters are opposed even to common sense and every-day practice.
2. The old forms are destroyed by the new life, and the new life by the old forms.
3. The work of destruction is continued while they clamour against destruction, until the new and the old are finally separated.—J. P. Lange, D.D.
The threefold mark of the new life.—
1. It assumes a definite outward form.
2. It cannot continue in the false and antiquated forms.
3. It must create for itself corresponding forms.—Ibid.
Mark 2:22. Form and spirit.—As the wineskin retains the wine, so are feelings and aspirations aided, and even preserved, by suitable external forms. Without these emotion would lose itself for want of restraint, wasted, like spilt wine, by diffuseness. And if the forms are unsuitable and outworn, the same calamity happens—the strong, new feelings break through them, “and the wine perisheth, and the skins.” In this respect how many a sad experience of the Church attests the wisdom of her Lord; what losses have been suffered in the struggle between forms that had stiffened into archaic ceremonialism and new zeal demanding scope for its energy—between the antiquated phrases of a bygone age and the new experience, knowledge, and requirements of the next—between the frosty precisions of unsympathetic age and the innocent warmth and freshness of the young, too often, alas! lost to their Master in passionate revolt against restraints which He neither imposed nor smiled upon.—Dean Chadwick.
Christian development.—The old stage-coaches could not have been utilised for steam-engines; the new thoughts respecting locomotion required new machinery. So did the thoughts of Christ require new habits and practices. These were not fully initiated by Christ, but He laid down the basis of all subsequent Christian development.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 2
Mark 2:21. External reform insufficient.—We may try from without to make human character lovely; but there is sin in its very fibre, and the blemishes will ever work out and mar all. The only way is to have a new heart, and then the beauty will be real and will endure. A mother lost by death a lovely and precious child—her only child. To occupy her heart and hand in some way about her vanished treasure, and thus fill the empty hours, she took up a photograph of her child and began to touch it with her skilful fingers. Soon, as she wrought, the features became almost lifelike. The picture was then laid away for a few days, and when she sought it again the eyes were dimmed, and the face was marred with ugly blotches. Patiently she went over it a second time, and the bewitching beauty came again. A second time it was laid away, and again the blotches appeared. There was something wrong in the paper on which the photograph had been taken. There were chemicals lurking in it which in some way marred the delicate colours, and no amount of repainting could correct the faults. So is it in human lives. No outside reform is enough, for all the while the heart is evil within, and it sends up its pollution, staining the fairest beauty. The change that is permanent must be wrought in the heart.—J. R. Miller, D. D.