Meditationen am Gnadenstuhl: Thursday Easter II - Luke 5:29-39

Thursday Easter II

Daily Lectionary Readings: Exodus 25:1-22; Luke 5:17-39; (Exodus 25:23-30:38)

Luke 5:29-39

[29] And Levi made him a great feast in his house, and there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them. [30] And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” [31] And Jesus answered them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. [32] I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”

[33] And they said to him, “The disciples of John fast often and offer prayers, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink.” [34] And Jesus said to them, “Can you make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? [35] The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.” [36] He also told them a parable: “No one tears a piece from a new garment and puts it on an old garment. If he does, he will tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old. [37] And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. [38] But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. [39] And no one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good.’” (ESV)

Our Lord, Jesus Christ, said, “And no one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good.’”1 As is usual with Jesus’ more difficult teachings, we will have to examine ourselves by our old words and actions to see what Jesus is telling us we have need of repentance for so that we may return to our lives after having been fed by His words, to live a little differently. Some aspects of our lives will now exhibit a new, more God-pleasing characteristic. Near the beginning of Jesus' ministry in Galilee, as recorded by St. Luke, the physician, Jesus began to call His Apostles. The first is Matthew Levi, the tax collector and future Gospel writer. This meditation is less about the wine and more about who Jesus is eating with.

This feast with Matthew Levi is Jesus' first in Luke's gospel, and Jesus’ dining is one of the major themes. Table fellowship with the Lord follows a pattern of the forgiveness of sins, ministry to the outcasts of society, and the controversy that ensues with the religious establishment. Have you ever felt like an outcast? We live in a country founded by them. We Lutherans in America have a special place in our hearts for the marginalized and oppressed. After all, the first Lutherans to come to these shores to settle in New Amsterdam and Pennsylvania, and many then landed right here in Ohio. After the long past and glorious years of the "golden age of orthodoxy" in Germany, they had to flee religious persecution.

When reading of Jesus' command to fulfill the great commission, we often think of African countries or the former Soviet states. There are, right now, more Lutherans in Africa than in the rest of the world combined. A group of pastors from Nigeria who were at the seminary for continuing education told us that they expect to be sending missionaries to the United States within the next twenty years.

A time of sweeping healing is required, and Jesus is the physician. The good news is that the doctor is in, and He makes house calls. He will also stay for dinner. The essence of Jesus' table fellowship in the Bible emphasizes the others at the table being sinners. The silent adjective is "penitent." Jesus associated with penitent sinners and preached to the impenitent that they might turn away from their sin and toward the healing and forgiveness He offers.

Hear again what Jesus said: “Those who are well do not have a need of a physician, but those that have something wrong. I have not come to call righteous, but sinners to repentance.”2 The great irony of Jesus' ministry is that sinners who are sick become healthy through repentance to the forgiveness of sins. Still, those so-called righteous Pharisees remain sick because they do not think that they have anything for which to repent.

It is not by accident that we refer to Christ as the bridegroom and His Church as the bride because, at this supper with Matthew Levi, we see the hint of the wedding feast of the lamb, which has no end. And to this banquet table, Jesus brings something old and something new.

Anyone with any kind of gifted palette knows that old wine is better. Vintners age wine in distinctive barrels to bring out the refined taste for which they can command outrageous prices. The Pharisees were so afraid of breaking God's law, which they claimed to love above all things, that they built an impossible structure of rules and regulations around them that no one could keep, even them. They claimed to do so, however and gloried in their self-righteousness. They liked the old wine. They thought it was superior.

But Jesus isn’t talking about food and drink. At least not the kind you see on the table in our text. He comes with brand-new food and drink that leads to life everlasting. He comes to make you well with His real physical body and blood, hidden in the sacramental union of bread and wine.

Today's problem is that we no longer identify with the outcasts and the marginalized in society. Our country founded on religious freedom set us free to grab the American dream, and our downfall is that we achieved it. We have become so set in our ways that we embrace all types of sin and vice, calling out those who commit sins worse than ours in the eyes of men and smugly remain blind to the plank in our eyes. You and I need our Great Physician. We need to repent.

Just showing up on Sunday is not enough. Join a Bible study. Read the Bible every day. It is not that great a burden, nor should it be! Ten minutes in the morning. Ten minutes in the evening. Spend a few moments thinking about what you read. Read a handful of notes in a study Bible. Combined with morning and evening prayer, you are looking at a sacrifice of an hour a day, maximum, split in two. Give a few minutes on Saturday night to prepare for confession and the Lord's Supper. That is one or two episodes of a television program.

Is it really a sacrifice? It takes about two weeks to develop new, healthy habits and give up harmful old ones. That new or renewed habit of time in prayer and reading Scripture isn't a work you are doing for God, nor is it a chore. Please, stop listening to those TV preachers who make it into one. They care about your money, not your soul. Jesus promises that new habits will become a longing and hunger pang. The new wine Jesus offers is better than the same old sour wine of bad habits we have fallen into. The Word of the Lord guarantees it. Taste and see that the Lord is good.3

1Luke 5:39 (ESV).

2Luke 5:31-32 (Rev. Dr. Arthur Just’s CC translation).

3Psalm 34:8.