May 26, 2024

650 The Wedding Guests Cannot Mourn as Long As The Bridegroom Is With Them, A Guided Christian Meditation on Matthew 9:14-17 with the Recenter With Christ app

The purpose of this podcast is to help you find more peace in your life and connect with the true source of peace, Jesus Christ. 
Outline: Relaxation, Reading, Meditation, Prayer, Contemplation and Visualization.
Get into a place where you can sit comfortably and uninterrupted for about 20 minutes.You should hopefully not be driving or anything tensing or unrelaxing.  If you feel comfortable to do so, I invite you to close your eyes.
 
Guided Relaxation / Guided Meditation:
Breathe and direct your thoughts to connecting with God. Let your stomach be a balloon inflate,  deflate.
Scripture for Meditation

Matthew 9

NIV
14 Then John’s disciples came and asked him, “How is it that we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?”
15 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.
16 “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. 17 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.”

ESV
14 Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” 15 And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. 16 No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made. 17 Neither is new wine put into old wineskins. If it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.”

Meditation on Scripture:

Fasting has been a valuable aspect of religious devotion for a very long time. I think at times we can get the wrong impression if we read this scripture and interpret that Jesus was somehow against fasting. We see elsewhere in scripture where Jesus fasted. Earlier in the same book of Matthew Jesus fasted for 40 days. Perhaps the more important question is not on the validity of fasting but on the individual devotion behind it. 
When fabric is new, it often has not fully shrunk and the patch would distort and pull the original garment. Similarly new wine that is still fermenting, has yeast that are still converting the sugars to alcohol so gas bubbles form and need to be vented which would not be possible in a wineskin that could not flex and stretch. Both of these processes described a natural response changed by exposure and age. This continues directly from the previous verses about how the sick need a physician. Similarly for  the fast, not to please God but to call to memory our physical need.

The question we can ask ourselves is this; is our religious devotion simply a matter of cold calculating rule following or is it a representation of the understanding of the process at work within us. God gives us scripture to show us how to live in such a way to invite Jesus into our hearts. True devotion helps us open our eyes to see. 

Ponder for a moment, how we can use fasting, prayer, study, even discipline of our actions, as a way of drawing near to God, as a form of worship? Not a form of negotiating favor from God, but as a desire to be swallowed up in God. Do we truly feel a love strong enough for God that we would mourn him if he was gone? If not perhaps we can seek that relationship with him by experience, by fasting and prayer. 

Meditation of Prayer:

Pray as directed by the Spirit.
Dedicate these moments to the patient waiting, when you feel ready ask God for understanding you desire from Him.
Meditation of God and His Glory / Hesychasm:
I invite you to sit in silence feeling patient for your own faults and trials.
Summarize what insights you have gained during this meditation and meditate and visualize positive change in your life:

This is a listener funded podcast at patreon.com/christianmeditationpodcast
Final Question: If you consider the invitation and command to persevere in the faith, what change in your life does that bring to your mind? 

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