Third Sunday After Resurrection – New Wine, New Wineskins: St. Mark 2:13-22

“No one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine bursts the wineskins, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But new wine must be put into new wineskins.” (2:22)

Christ is risen! Indeed, He is risen!

Three weeks since Pascha.

The tomb has been empty for twenty-two days. Mary heard her name. The Emmaus hearts burned. The mountain commission was given. The Hevoro Days unfolded: exhortation, love, the Harrowing, Thomas’s confession, the breakfast on the beach. The risen Christ has been appearing in gardens and locked rooms and on roads and shores and mountainsides. He has breathed the Spirit. He has shown the wounds. He has cooked fish and broken bread.

And now, three Sundays into the post-resurrection life, the Gospel reading takes us backward. Not to the resurrection narratives. To the early ministry. To a tax collector sitting at a booth. To a dinner party with sinners. To a question about fasting. To old garments and new patches and wine that cannot be contained.

Why this passage now? Three weeks after Pascha?

Because the resurrection is new wine. And the question the Church must answer in these post-Paschal weeks is: do we have a wineskin that can hold it?

The Calling of Levi (vv. 13-14)

“Then He went out again by the sea, and all the multitude came to Him, and He taught them. As He passed by, He saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax office, and said to him, ‘Follow Me.’ So he arose and followed Him.” (2:13–14)

“He saw Levi.”

Eiden. He saw. The same seeing that found the bent woman in the synagogue (Day 28). The same seeing that looked up into Zacchaeus’s tree (Day 36). The same seeing that noticed Mary weeping in the garden (Sunday of Resurrection). Christ sees the person no one else is looking at. Or rather, the person everyone else is looking past. Or looking down on.

Levi is a tax collector. Telōnēs. In first-century Palestine, this is not an unpleasant but respectable civil servant. This is a collaborator. A traitor. A man who has bought the right to collect Roman taxes from his own people, keeping whatever he can extract above the required amount. The profit margin is corruption. The business model is extortion. The social status is the lowest of the low. Lower than sinners. Lower than prostitutes in some rabbinic rankings. A tax collector is a Jew who has sold his people to the occupier for money.

And Christ sees him. Not past him. Him.

“Follow Me.”

Two words. Akolouthei moi. The same words spoken to Peter and Andrew and James and John at the beginning of the ministry (Mark 1:17–20). The same invitation. The same command. The same call. Given to fishermen who were honest workers. And now given to a tax collector who is a professional cheat.

The call does not distinguish between the respectable and the disreputable. The fishermen received the same words as the tax collector. The invitation is identical. Follow Me. Not “repent first, then follow.” Not “clean yourself up, then come.” Not “stop collecting taxes, then I will consider you.” Follow Me. Now. As you are. From where you are sitting.

On Day 36, Christ looked up into a tree and said “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house.” Zacchaeus was also a tax collector. A chief tax collector. The calling of Levi and the calling of Zacchaeus are the same story told twice. The same God. The same seeing. The same invitation. The same scandal. Christ goes to the people the religious establishment has written off.

“So he arose and followed Him.”

Anastas ēkolouthēsen autō. He arose and followed. The same immediate response as the fishermen. No negotiation. No conditions. No “let me finish my accounts” or “let me collect what I am owed.” He stood up. He left the booth. He followed. The tax ledger stayed on the table. The money stayed in the drawer. The life he had been living for years was abandoned in a single motion.

On Day 25, the rich young ruler was invited to follow and could not. He went away sorrowful because he had great possessions. Today Levi is invited to follow and does. Immediately. The rich young ruler’s wealth held him. Levi’s wealth did not. The difference is not the amount of money. It is the grip. The rich young ruler held his possessions. Levi’s possessions did not hold him. When the voice said “follow,” Levi’s hands opened and the booth was empty.

St. Ephrem the Syrian, in his Commentary on the Diatessaron, writes that Levi’s arising from the tax booth is a resurrection in miniature. The man who was dead to his community (excommunicated, socially buried, treated as non-existent by the righteous) stands up and walks away from the grave of his old life. Ephrem says: every calling is a resurrection. Every “follow Me” is a “come forth.” The voice that called Lazarus out of the tomb is the same voice that called Levi out of the booth. Different graves. Same voice. Same life on the other side.¹

Three weeks after Pascha, this truth is sharper than ever. The resurrection is not only what happened to Christ in the tomb. It is what happens to Levi at the tax booth. To Zacchaeus in the tree. To the bent woman in the synagogue. To every person who hears “follow Me” and stands up and walks away from the thing that held them. The resurrection is contagious. It spreads from the tomb to the booth. From the garden to the tax office. From the risen Christ to the arising sinner.

He Sat at the Table with Sinners (vv. 15–17)

“Now it happened, as He was dining in Levi’s house, that many tax collectors and sinners also sat together with Jesus and His disciples; for there were many, and they followed Him. And when the scribes and Pharisees saw Him eating with tax collectors and sinners, they said to His disciples, ‘How is it that He eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners?’ When Jesus heard it, He said to them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.'” (2:15–17)

“He was dining in Levi’s house.”

Levi throws a party. His first act after following Christ is not prayer. Not repentance. Not study. A party. A dinner. A large gathering at his house. And the guest list is exactly what you would expect from a tax collector’s address book. Tax collectors. Sinners. The disreputable. The excluded. The people whose invitations to respectable houses had long since stopped arriving.

On Day 36, Zacchaeus received Christ into his house and spontaneous repentance followed. Today Levi receives Christ and a feast follows. The pattern is the same. Christ enters the house of the sinner. And the house is transformed. Not by a lecture. By a presence. The presence at the table changes the table. The dining companion changes the dinner.

“Many tax collectors and sinners also sat together with Jesus and His disciples.”

The table is mixed. Tax collectors beside apostles. Sinners beside the Son of God. The disreputable beside the holy. And Christ is in the middle of it all. Eating. Drinking. Not presiding. Not lecturing. Eating.

On Day 46, Christ sat at the Last Supper and broke bread with the man who would betray Him and the man who would deny Him. The mixed table is not an accident. It is the design. Christ’s table is always mixed. The worthy and the unworthy. The faithful and the failing. The repentant and the not-yet-repentant. All at the same table. All receiving the same bread.

“How is it that He eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners?”

The Pharisees’ question. Not to Christ directly. To His disciples. Behind His back. The question of the righteous about the behaviour of the holy. How can He eat with those people? Does He not know who they are? Does He not know what they have done? The table fellowship is the scandal. In first-century Judaism, sharing a table meant sharing an identity. Eating with sinners meant accepting sinners. And the Pharisees could not accept the acceptance.

“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.”

Christ’s answer. Not a defence. A diagnosis. The sinners at the table are not casual dinner guests. They are patients. The table is a clinic. The meal is medicine. And the physician does not stay in the waiting room with the healthy. The physician goes to the ward where the sick are lying.

On Day 43, Christ wept over Jerusalem because it did not know the things that made for its peace. Today He sits at the table of the people Jerusalem has rejected, and He heals them with His presence. The physician who wept over the city that refused treatment is now treating the people the city threw away.

“I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Ouk ēlthon kalesai dikaious alla hamartōlous. The purpose statement. The reason for the Incarnation compressed into a single sentence. Not for the righteous. For sinners. Not for the healthy. For the sick. Not for those who have it together. For those who are falling apart.

On Hevoro Thursday, John wrote “we love because He first loved us.” Today the firstness is visible at Levi’s table. Christ did not wait for Levi to become righteous before calling him. He called Levi while Levi was sitting in the booth of his corruption. The love went first. To the tax booth. To the sinner’s table. To the people the righteous would not touch.

St. John Chrysostom, in his Homily 30 on Matthew (on the parallel account), teaches that the Pharisees’ objection reveals more about the Pharisees than about Christ. He says the Pharisees define themselves by who they exclude. Christ defines Himself by who He includes. The Pharisees’ righteousness requires a list of people who are outside. Christ’s righteousness has no outside. The table is open. The invitation is universal. The only people who are not at the table are the people who refuse to sit down. Chrysostom says: the Pharisees are not wrong that they are righteous. They are wrong that their righteousness qualifies them to decide who else can be at the table.²

Three weeks after Pascha, this passage speaks to the post-resurrection Church directly. Who is at our table? Who has been excluded from the communion? Who has been written off as too far gone, too compromised, too sinful for the fellowship? The risen Christ sat at Levi’s table. The risen Christ breathed the Spirit in a room where Peter the denier was standing. The risen Christ cooked breakfast for seven men who had abandoned the commission and gone fishing. The resurrection table is the table of sinners. Not the table of the righteous. If the righteous want to join, they are welcome. But the table was set for sinners. And the physician is already seated.

The Question About Fasting (vv. 18–20)

“The disciples of John and of the Pharisees were fasting. Then they came and said to Him, ‘Why do the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast, but Your disciples do not fast?’ And Jesus said to them, ‘Can the friends of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast. But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.'” (2:18–20)

“Why do Your disciples not fast?”

The question is natural. Fasting was central to Jewish piety. The Pharisees fasted twice a week (Luke 18:12). John’s disciples fasted as part of their penitential practice. And Christ’s disciples were feasting. At Levi’s table. With tax collectors and sinners. Eating and drinking while the righteous were going without.

Why?

“Can the friends of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them?”

The answer is a metaphor. And the metaphor is a wedding. Christ is the bridegroom. The disciples are the wedding guests. And you do not fast at a wedding. The wedding feast is the celebration. The presence of the bridegroom is the reason for the feasting. As long as the bridegroom is here, the table is full. The cups are raised. The food is abundant. The mourning is inappropriate. The fasting is out of place.

This passage, read three weeks after Pascha, takes on its deepest meaning.

The Great Lent was the fasting. Fifty days. The bridegroom was “taken away.” On Great Friday. In the tomb on Holy Saturday. The taking away happened. And the fasting was appropriate. Every day of the Lenten fast was a day of the bridegroom’s absence. The hunger was real. The discipline was real. The mourning was liturgically and spiritually correct because the bridegroom was in the grave.

But now? Pascha has happened. The bridegroom has returned. The tomb is empty. The resurrection has been celebrated. The Hevoro Days are the days of the bridegroom’s presence. And the proper response to the bridegroom’s return is not continued fasting. It is feasting. Celebration. The table of Levi. The breakfast on the beach. The broken bread at Emmaus. The wedding feast has resumed because the bridegroom who was taken away has come back.

On Day 1, the fast began. On Day 40, the forty days were completed. On Day 46, the bread was broken at the Last Supper. On Day 50, the fast ended at the empty tomb. Today, three Sundays later, Christ explains why the fast ended and the feast began. The bridegroom is here. We cannot fast in the presence of the bridegroom.

The Church calendar understands this. Between Pascha and Pentecost, the fasting rules are relaxed. Some traditions prohibit kneeling during this period. The posture of the Paschal season is standing, not kneeling. Feasting, not fasting. Joy, not sorrow. Because the bridegroom who was taken away has returned.

But notice: Christ says “the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.” The fasting is not permanently abolished. The fasting will return. The Ascension will come. The physical presence of Christ will withdraw. And the fast will resume. Not as punishment. As longing. The fast of the bride who waits for the bridegroom’s return. The fast that says: I am hungry for Your presence. I am living in the time between Your first coming and Your second. And the hunger is the proof that I belong to You.

The Lenten fast was not a punishment. It was love expressed as longing. The bridegroom was absent (liturgically, experientially). The fast was the bride’s response. Not “I must suffer.” Rather “I miss You.” And now, in the Paschal season, the bridegroom has returned. And the fast gives way to the feast. Not because fasting was wrong. Because the bridegroom is here. And we cannot mourn in the presence of love.

St. Cyril of Alexandria, in his Commentary on Luke (on the parallel passage), teaches that the bridegroom metaphor is the key to understanding the rhythm of the Church’s liturgical year. He says the Church fasts and feasts in rhythm with the bridegroom’s presence and absence. The fast is not deprivation. It is longing. The feast is not indulgence. It is reunion. The alternation between fast and feast is the heartbeat of the Church’s love for Christ. Fast when He is absent. Feast when He is present. And in the Eucharist, He is always present. Which is why the Qurbana is always a feast, even in the middle of Lent. The bridegroom is at the table. The bread is His body. The cup is His blood. And wherever the bridegroom is, the wedding feast continues.³

New Cloth, New Wineskins (vv. 21–22)

“No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; or else the new piece pulls away from the old, and the tear is made worse. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine bursts the wineskins, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But new wine must be put into new wineskins.” (2:21–22)

Two parables. Two images. One truth.

The patch. You do not sew new, unshrunk cloth onto an old garment. When the new cloth is washed, it shrinks. The shrinking pulls on the old fabric. The tear is made worse. The repair destroys what it was meant to fix. The new and the old are incompatible when one is forced onto the other.

The wineskins. You do not put new wine into old wineskins. New wine ferments. It expands. It pushes outward. Old wineskins have already been stretched by their previous wine. They have hardened. Lost their flexibility. The new wine’s expansion will burst the old skins. The wine is lost. The skins are ruined.

“But new wine must be put into new wineskins.”

The resurrection is the new wine.

The old wineskins are every framework, every expectation, every system, every structure that cannot expand to hold what the resurrection has produced. The Pharisees’ fasting calendar that cannot accommodate a bridegroom. The scribes’ purity laws that cannot accommodate a table with sinners. The religious establishment’s categories that cannot accommodate a tax collector being called to discipleship. The disciples’ political expectations that could not accommodate a suffering Messiah. The old wineskins of every “it has always been done this way” that cracks under the pressure of what God is doing now.

On Day 29, the potter shaped the clay into whatever the potter wanted. The clay did not dictate the form. Today the wine demands a wineskin that can hold it. The wine does not adjust to the wineskin. The wineskin must adjust to the wine. The content determines the container. Not the other way around.

On Day 44, the Sadducees tried to squeeze the resurrection into the categories of the present world (whose wife will she be?). Christ said: you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. The resurrection does not fit into the old categories. It bursts them. The same truth today.

The new wine of the resurrection cannot be contained in the old wineskins of pre-resurrection religion. The old religion expected a messiah who would overthrow Rome. The new wine is a Messiah who overthrew death. The old religion expected the righteous to be separated from sinners. The new wine is a table where the physician sits with the sick. The old religion expected fasting during the bridegroom’s presence. The new wine is feasting because the bridegroom is here.

On Hevoro Wednesday, Hebrews compared Moses (servant in the house) with Christ (Son over the house). The old wineskin is the Mosaic system. Faithful. Good. Necessary. But unable to hold the new wine of the resurrection. The servant’s wineskin cannot contain the Son’s wine. Not because the servant’s wineskin was defective. Because the Son’s wine is bigger. More abundant. More alive. More expanding. The old wineskin held the old wine perfectly. It was made for the old wine. But the new wine needs new skin. New capacity. New flexibility. New room to expand.

St. Ephrem the Syrian, in his Hymns on the Church, writes about the new wine with characteristic poetry. He says the wine of the resurrection is still fermenting. It has not finished expanding. The Church is the new wineskin. And the wineskin must keep stretching. The moment the Church stops stretching, the moment it says “we have expanded enough, we have included enough, we have grown enough,” the wineskin hardens. And the wine will burst it. Ephrem says: the wineskin that holds the resurrection wine must never stop being new. The freshness is not optional. It is survival. The wine will keep pressing outward. The wineskin must keep yielding. Or the wine and the skin will both be lost.⁴

For the third Sunday after Pascha, this is the central question. Three weeks into the post-resurrection life, the temptation is to harden. To let the old categories reassert themselves. To go back to the booth (Levi’s temptation in reverse). To go back to the fasting calendar that does not account for the bridegroom. To go back to the table that excludes the sinners. To go back to the wineskin that held the old wine perfectly and cannot hold the new.

On Hevoro Wednesday, Hebrews warned: do not harden our hearts. Today Mark warns: do not harden our wineskins. The hardening of the heart and the hardening of the wineskin are the same thing. The loss of flexibility. The loss of the capacity to expand. The loss of the newness that the new wine requires.

The resurrection is still fermenting. The wine is still expanding. The Spirit is still pressing outward. And the wineskin of our life, our community, our worship, our understanding must keep stretching. Or the wine will be lost.

What the Third Sunday After the Resurrection Means

Three weeks after Pascha, the Church is settling into the post-resurrection life. The initial shock has faded. The dramatic appearances have been absorbed. The Hevoro Days of burning hearts and mountain commissions and breakfast on the beach are becoming memory. And the danger is that the old wineskins reassert themselves.

The old habits of exclusion. The old categories of who belongs and who does not. The old fasting calendars that do not account for the bridegroom’s return. The old assumptions about how God works and who God calls and where God eats.

Today’s passage disrupts all of it. The calling of Levi disrupts the assumption that God only calls the respectable. The table with sinners disrupts the assumption that holiness requires separation from the unholy. The bridegroom metaphor disrupts the assumption that the spiritual life is always about denial. The new wine disrupts the assumption that the old containers are sufficient.

The resurrection is new wine. It demands new wineskins. Not because the old was bad. The old was faithful. Moses was faithful in all God’s house. The Lenten fast was faithful. The disciplines were faithful. The old wineskin held the old wine perfectly.

But the wine has changed. The tomb is empty. The bridegroom has returned. The physician is at the sinner’s table. The Spirit has been breathed into the Church. And the container must expand to hold what has been poured into it.

Three Sundays after Pascha, the question is not whether we believe in the resurrection. The question is whether our wineskin can hold the wine. Whether our life has the flexibility to accommodate what the risen Christ is doing. Whether our community has the capacity to include the people Christ is calling. Whether our understanding of God is stretching fast enough to keep up with the God who sits at the table of tax collectors and sinners and says “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

For Our Journey Today

Look at who Christ is calling. Levi was the last person the religious establishment expected to be called. Today, look around. Who is Christ calling that surprises you? Who is sitting at the tax booth of your assumptions, waiting to hear “follow Me”? The calling of Levi is not a first-century event. It is a present-tense reality. Christ is still seeing the people everyone else looks past. Christ is still calling the people everyone else has written off. And if we are paying attention, we will see it happening. In our parish. In our community. In our family. The tax collector is arising.

Sit at the mixed table. Christ ate with sinners. Not separately from His disciples. Together. The table was mixed. Tax collectors beside apostles. Today, sit at the mixed table. The Qurbana is the mixed table. The parish community is the mixed table. The breakfast on the beach was a mixed table (Peter who denied, Thomas who doubted, fishermen who abandoned the commission). The table of the risen Christ has never been a table of the perfect. It has always been a table of the physician and the patients. Sit down. Whether we feel like the physician’s helper or the physician’s patient. Sit down. The table is for us.

Stretch the wineskin. The resurrection wine is still fermenting. It is still expanding. It is still pressing outward. Today, ask yourself: where is my wineskin hardening? Where have I stopped stretching? Where have I said “this is enough expansion, this is enough inclusion, this is enough newness”? The wine will not stop. The Spirit will not stop. The risen Christ will not stop calling Levis and eating with sinners and filling empty nets and building fires on beaches. The wineskin must keep stretching. Or the wine will be lost.

Lord Jesus Christ, who saw Levi sitting at the tax booth and said “follow Me,” and who sat at the table with tax collectors and sinners while the righteous muttered, see us today. We are at the booth. Some of us are Levi, waiting to be called from the life that has defined us and the corruption that has held us. Some of us are the Pharisees, muttering about who You choose to eat with. Some of us are the disciples of John, wondering why Your people are feasting when everyone else is fasting. See all of us. Call all of us. Seat all of us at the same table. The mixed table. The table where the physician sits with the patients. The table where the bridegroom feasts with the guests. And give us new wineskins, Lord. The resurrection wine is still fermenting. Our old categories are cracking. Our old assumptions are bursting. Our old frameworks cannot hold what You are doing. Make us new. Flexible. Expandable. Able to stretch with the wine. So that the wine is not lost and the wineskins are not ruined. But the new wine and the new wineskins are preserved together. For the feast that never ends. By the prayers of the Most Holy Theotokos, St. Levi who became the holy Evangelist Matthew, and all the saints, have mercy on us and save us. Amen.

The Third Sunday After the Resurrection. A tax collector at a booth. “Follow Me.” A dinner party with sinners. “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” A question about fasting. “Can the friends of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them?” And new wine. Pressing outward. Demanding new wineskins. The resurrection is still fermenting. The wine is still expanding. And the wineskin must keep stretching. Or the wine will be lost.

Patristic References

St. Ephrem the Syrian (c. 306–373). Commentary on the Diatessaron. ↩︎
St. John Chrysostom (c. 349–407). Homily 30 on Matthew, on the parallel account in Matthew 9:9–13. ↩︎
St. Cyril of Alexandria (c. 376–444). Commentary on the Gospel of Luke, on the parallel passage (Luke 5:33–39). ↩︎
St. Ephrem the Syrian (c. 306–373). Hymns on the Church (Madrāshē d-ʿal ʿEdtā). ↩︎