Or, That the Found Would Be Feasting
Scripture: Luke 5:33-39
Date: September 13, 2026
Speaker: Sean Higgins
How do you know if your repentance is real? What are the signs?
In the context of the church in America in the 21st century, we might have to defend using the word repentance to start with. Repentance means change, change of mind, change of feelings, change of loyalties, change of choices. Repentance turns from sin, which includes an acknowledgement of sin, and an acknowledgement of the Lord’s authority to name sin and judge it. Even when we find a pack of Christians willing to call non-Christians to repentance, what can we expect the repentance to look like?
Already in Luke we saw John the Baptist proclaiming a baptism of repentance (Luke 3:3), and expecting others to “bear fruit in keeping with repentance” (Luke 3:8). And then we just saw Jesus’ own mission statement: “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:32).
Jesus said this in response to the Rule Boys who were critical of His company. They caught Him with tax collectors and sinners. They knew that’s not what righteous people do. They knew that’s not what they would do.
And after Jesus answered that He came for sinners not to avoid sinners, “they” move on to the next complaint. First they didn’t approve of the kind of man Jesus called to repent, but now they don’t approve of how those who did repent are conducting themselves. You know what those repentant people’s problem is? They are way too happy.
People can’t help but be religious. The Pharisees and scribes were religious elites. They pored over the Law to know what was right, and then built up other expectations around the Law to protect it. It’s like adding a sixth quart of oil to an engine that takes five, just to be safe. But their engines were smoking at what Jesus seemed to allow for His disciples.
In Luke 5:33-39 Jesus explains why repentant men are bursting at the seams with joy when He is present.
Often “they” are hard to identify, here we know who they are. Luke connects this complaint with the Pharisees and scribes who were already grumbling (Luke 5:30).
There are three groups of disciples but only two of them are acting like the righteous. The disciples of John fast often and offer prayers. Presumably Jesus would be in favor of this because John was His forerunner. So do the disciples of the Pharisees fast and pray; they had a whole schedule (Luke 18:12). By their own measure they are the cream of the crop for keeping the Mosaic covenant. They know the best places to get sackcloth.
So what’s the deal with the disciples of Jesus who eat and drink? This follows the eating and drinking in verse 30. The righteous fast, they don’t feast. If you want to see real repentance, you won’t find it at a party, right? Real repentance is sober and sad-looking. They knew what God wanted. Jesus and His disciples are not following the rules, and the last thing the tax collectors need is another party.
Jesus answers with four illustrations, and the first one is the main flavor.
What attitude do you wear to a wedding? There is an obvious answer. Jesus knows the dignity of marriage and the seriousness of vows and the embodied picture that husband and wife are of Jesus and His bride. Jesus could have made it His ministry to travel from wedding to wedding with the message: “Hey, I think you need to be more sober about what’s happening here.”
Joy is the obvious attire for a wedding. And what is the menu for joy? That is also an obvious answer. It is not NO menu. Even if it’s the cheaper chicken, fry that chicken and dish it up like there are no cholesterol consequences. Fill up your glass.
Jesus highlights the groom’s presence because He’s highlighting His presence. This is a prophet’s way of talking about God and His people (see Isaiah 61:10; 62:5). Jesus puts Himself at the center of the celebration. His disciples’ conduct makes sense once you recognize who is with them.
There are a couple options for what Jesus meant when He said that days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them. Maybe He means now. He rose from the grave and ascended into heaven and generations have been waiting for His return. So we mourn His absence and put away our wine glasses until the Second Coming.
The church does fast in Acts, but never in mourning for an absent Christ; they fast to seek guidance, not because they are sad about the bridegroom. After Acts, no epistle commands fasting or even reports fasting as part of a church’s practice. This does not mean that we don’t know enough to know that fasting could be appropriate at times. But it does suggest that Jesus was referring to a shorter time.
Jesus was taken away for three days, a more violent idea than the ascension. That was a time of uncertainty and grief. Jesus compared it to the time of a woman in labor, with sorrow and anguish (John 16:20-22). But after His resurrection, the dominant flavor has been love and joy and peace, not fear and misery and anxiety.
The point here is, wedding guests have a job when the groom is present. Rejoice in and with the Bridegroom! Gird up your loins and put on your dancing sandals.
Luke introduces this as a parable in three brief comparisons, a trio of “no one”s.
No one sees a hole in an old shirt and rips up a new shirt to patch it. It ruins the new shirt, and it’s impossible to match the old shirt, let alone realizing that the old threads will just rip more. The fix was temporary and led to more tearing.
What is the old and new Jesus is talking about?
No one is so ignorant and careless as to ruin a new batch of wine by putting it in containers that can’t hold it. Their first-century containers were animal skins, and over time the skins dried out and wore thin. New wine isn’t settled, still fermenting and letting off gas, so more likely to burst an old skin. If that happens the skin can’t be used and the wine is gone.
What is the old and new Jesus is talking about?
The last proverb keeps with the wine illustration, but helps us identify the old and new.
No one who is accustomed to the old wine says, “Let me try the new stuff.” This isn’t just a comment about quality, it’s a comment about settling with what you’ve decided is right.
Why does Jesus jump from “you don’t fast at a wedding” to “you don’t patch new on old”? The link is that the newness of what He brings can’t be contained in old forms.
The illustrations of the garments and wineskins show why the combination won’t work. The old wine shows why people still resist the change.
The way of Jesus is the new garment, the new wine. The man-centered lifestyle and liturgy of the Pharisees were the old ways, the old garment, the old wineskins, and old wine. They were comfortable being miserable, content with external standards of repentance. Even John’s disciples had yet to recognize the full meaning of the Messiah’s arrival. And the Pharisees were just tweaked that Jesus didn’t match their expectations.
“this people draw near with their mouth
and honor me with their lips,
while their hearts are far from me,
and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men”
(Isaiah 29:13 ESV)
They saw the feast and concluded that repentance was missing. Repentance means changing your mind. What if part of the change you need is learning to rejoice when God gives you reason?
Fasting and feasting are really helpful categories (for that matter, so are weddings and wine). There are good and bad ways of both, less or more. The key is, is Jesus present?
Jesus did fast (Luke 4:2). Jesus instructed His disciples how to fast, assuming that they would (Matthew 6:16-18). There are a couple cases of the early church fasting in seeking guidance from the Lord. But the church didn’t treat Jesus’ ascension as a killjoy.
How do you know if your repentance is real? You turn from your sin to the Lord, and you let His Word frame your expectations. You don’t insist on fasting when He gives you reason to feast. Jesus came to call sinners, forgive them, and bring them into His company. He is with us (Matthew 28:20), so the found would be feasting.
Examine your settled tastes. Are you comfortable measuring your repentance by easier standards? Are you giving room for the new wine of Jesus’ presence, or trying to make the old skins hold on? Christian, abide in the Vine so that His joy may be in you, and that your joy may be bursting at the seams.
Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. (Jude 1:24–25 ESV)