The third objection the religious leaders voiced arose from the failure of Jesus' disciples to observe the traditional, not Scriptural, fast days that the Pharisees observed (cf. Lev. 16:29). Jesus' association with tax gatherers and sinners seemed to them to result in the neglect of devout practices.
2:18 We do not know why John the Baptist's disciples were fasting. Perhaps it was because he was then in prison. The Pharisees fasted twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays (cf. Luke 18:12).78The feast in Levi's house may have occurred on one of these days.
2:19-20 Jesus responded with a parable in which Jesus is the bridegroom and His disciples are the friends of the bridegroom (cf. John 3:29). Jesus had come to unite with Israel, His bride, as her Messiah. The wedding banquet seemed just a short time away. The prophets said it would occur after Messiah's death and resurrection and after the Tribulation. The bridegroom would have to leave His friends and His bride before the banquet. Still while they were together they could and did rejoice, not mourn, which fasting represented. Jewish custom exempted the friends of a bridegroom from certain religious obligations including participating in the weekly fasts.79This was Jesus' first hint of His coming death in Mark's Gospel.
2:21-22 Two more parables clarified why fasting was inappropriate for Jesus' disciples then. Not only was the timing wrong but the messianic age that Jesus would introduce would render the old traditional forms of Judaism obsolete. Judaism had become old, and Jesus was going to set up a new form of God's kingdom on earth that would be similar to a new garment.
A garment symbolized the covering of man's sinful condition in Old Testament usage (e.g., Gen. 3:21; Isa. 61:10). The Jews were to lay aside the old garment of the Mosaic dispensation and put on the new of the messianic age. Judaism had also become rigid and inflexible because of the traditions that had encrusted it, like old goatskins that contained wine. Jesus' kingdom could not operate within those constraints. It would be a new and more flexible vehicle for bringing joy (wine) to humanity.
The first of these three parables may have been more relevant to John's disciples since they anticipated a coming change. Jesus may have directed the second and third parables more to the Pharisees since they wanted to maintain the legalistic practices of Judaism that were now threadbare and inflexible.
