Summary
Patches and Wineskins
In Matthew 9:14-17, the disciples of John ask Jesus why they and the Pharisees fast often, but His disciples do not. Jesus answers first by identifying Himself as the bridegroom—it is not fitting for the wedding guests to mourn while He is with them—and then offers two short parables that explain why His coming cannot simply be tacked onto the old religious life. No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak, for the patch tears away and makes the rip worse. Neither does anyone pour new wine into old wineskins, for the skins burst and both are lost.
The images come from ordinary life. In the ancient world, "fullers" pre-shrunk cloth before using it as a patch, because a fresh patch sewn onto a worn garment would shrink in the wash and tear the cloak apart. Wine was stored in skins—often goat hide—that were soft and pliable when new. As the wine fermented and expanded, fresh skins could stretch with it; brittle, used skins would simply split. Jesus is using familiar household wisdom to make a theological point about Himself.
The context is fasting, and the Pharisees understood fasting as a meritorious work—something they did to make themselves righteous before God, to keep themselves in good standing. The parable in Luke 18 shows the danger plainly: the Pharisee thanks God that he is not like other men, listing his fasting and tithing, while the tax collector simply pleads, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner." For the Pharisee, Jesus could only ever be an add-on to a self-made righteousness. For the tax collector, God is not an add-on; He is everything. That is the heart of the teaching in Patches and Wineskins.
This is why Jesus refuses to be patched onto the old garment of our works or poured into the old skin of our self-rule. He will not be an addition to a life otherwise managed by us. The temptation surfaces whenever we say, "I am saved by faith in Christ and by being a really good person," or "I am in charge of my life, and Jesus is welcome to come alongside," or "there are areas Jesus may have, and areas reserved for me." The popular slogan that God is one's "copilot" only raises the question of who, then, is the captain. To stitch the new onto the old in this way is to hear the tearing and see the spill.
The gospel does not call us to find a sturdier patch but to receive a new garment altogether. Christ has borne our sin, died for our darkness, and risen victorious; in Him we are clothed in His righteousness, and at His Table we receive His body and blood for the forgiveness of sins. Grace upon grace, mercy upon mercy—not a repair job, but a new creation.
This is also why Lent begins where it does. The forty-day walk to Easter opens with ashes traced in the sign of the cross: a reminder of sin, frailty, and mortality, and at the same time a reminder of the cross by which our Lord has answered all three. Lent is a season of repentance—of turning around by God's grace—and of letting go of every attempt to make Jesus an accessory to our lives. No more patches. No more new wine in old skins. He is not an add-on. He is everything.
Video citations
- "Patches and Wineskins" 2-19-26 — Would you open your Bibles, please, with me this evening, to the ninth chapter of the gospel of Matthew, if you're using a Pew edition of Holy Scripture, that you'll find in the Pew Rackin front of…