Gospel Readthrough: Mark 2:18-2:20

[jack]

Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. Some people came and asked Jesus, “How is it that John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting, but yours are not?”

Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? They cannot, so long as they have him with them. But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast.

This chapter contains a series of stories about "Jesus said/Pharisees said", collected together thematically. I'm not sure about this one.

A lot of these stories follow a pattern of Jesus doing something, and the Pharasees loudly objecting that it's completely wrong according to their hoity-toity fancy-pants high-temple traditions, and Jesus retorting that none of that was in his down-to-Earth working-class Gallilean traditions, and pulling out some authoritative Torah quotes to prove it.

But I don't know if this one fits. Is the bridegroom thing a reference to specific tradition? Or is this one a case where Jesus is saying "we should do things differently here because I'm the son of God", which is what it sounds like?

Alternatively, was there a controversy in the early church whether people should fast for Easter instead of or as well as the traditional Jewish fasts? If so, that would explain why put this bit in, to record Jesus helpfully predicting that people should fast when he dies.

The next two verses are the bit with "would you put new wine into an old wineskin if that would ruin it" which seem to be some sort of metaphor for new/old traditions, but I'm not sure exactly how.