While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Then John’s disciples came and asked him, “How is it that we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?” Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.

“No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”
- Matthew 9:10-17

Human beings are deeply wired to want to stay separate from the things that we fear might make us dirty. In our modern world, we think in biological terms about infection. In the ancient world, the wrong kind of people could 'pollute' you. That's why some groups didn't like it when Jesus sat down to eat with tax collectors and sinners. When people complained, Jesus responded with the image of new wine in old wineskins. It's a simple message—the old cannot contain the new. Old frameworks could not contain the inbreaking Kingdom of God - in fact, it was bursting out of the boundaries that people would want to place on it.

The Pharisees and John’s disciples were sincere, committed people. Their movements sought holiness, repentance, and faithfulness to God. But they were still waiting—waiting for renewal, for restoration, for God to act. What they failed to see was that the waiting was over. The bridegroom had arrived. God was restoring his people, not through stricter boundaries or deeper separation, but through mercy, healing, and presence. Jesus’ holiness worked differently. Instead of avoiding the sick, he became their doctor. Instead of guarding purity by distance, he restored people just by drawing near to them.

Where do we struggle to make space for what God is doing now? Are there habits, identities, or ways of seeing ourselves that no longer stretch? Perhaps we sense the tension—the feeling that we can’t cling to what’s familiar and fully receive Jesus at the same time. The good news is this: there is nothing we can do to heal ourselves, but there is someone who has come to do what we cannot. Jesus is the healer. He is the new wine. He offers the Kingdom freely and waits for our response.