Sermon: A Levitical Feast (Luke 5:26-39)

A Levitical Feast
Sunday, May 3^rd, 2026
Fifth Sunday of Easter
Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA
Luke 5:27–39

Prayer

O Father, we thank you for the newness that Christ has brought into the world, and that while our outer man wastes away, the inner man is renewed day by day. Renew us again we ask, by the power of Your Holy Spirit, in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Introduction

How old is Christ Covenant Church? In just a few weeks we will celebrate our Five-Year Anniversary, because five years ago we first gathered under the oversight of Trinity Church in Kirkland, in the jurisdiction of Anselm Presbytery in the CREC, with ten member households and a written constitution, and we began to worship together. So there is a real sense in which this particular church is only five years old.

• However, we also confess in the Nicene Creed that the church is “one holy catholic and apostolic.” Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:13, For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body.
• And so there is also a sense in which Christ Covenant Church is as ancient as the apostles. Why? Because we have the same faith as the apostles. We have the same baptism as the apostles. We have the same communion in the new covenant together with the apostles. We have been made members of the same body of Christ in the One Spirit, together with the apostles and all the saints in light.
  • Paul speaks of this glorious reality in Ephesians 2:13-22 saying, But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father. Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. O the many wonderous truths that God reveals in His church.
• So you, Christ Covenant Church are simultaneously old and young, ancient and new. You are not far away from God, like strangers and foreigners, you are now God’s very dwelling place, citizens, saints, members of His singular Household.
  • Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3:21-23, All things are yours: whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas, or the world or life or death, or things present or things to come—all are yours. And you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.
  • So while many different churches, traditions and denominations may boast of their respective fathers in the faith, their honored theologians, martyrs, missionaries, and saints, Paul says, if you are in Christ, all of Christendom is yours (past, present, future). Whatever and whoever belongs to Jesus, belongs to you, because you are in Him.
  • This is your heritage, your history, if you are a believer. The church universal is now your people, your roots, your spiritual lineage, regardless of what specific tribe within the church you may find yourself in. Your inheritance in Christ stretches back to the twelve apostles, even back to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, even farther back to Noah and Abel, the first martyr of our common faith, all who now surround us Paul says, as a great cloud of witnesses (Heb. 12:1).
• So Christ Covenant Church is both 5 years old and 2,000 years old, and even as old as Abel (6,000 years). We are a new people with an ancient faith in the God who does not change.
  • Paul draws on this truth in Hebrews 13:7-8 when he says, Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation. Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.
• Why do I begin by talking about the age of our church? Well because this morning in our text, Luke gives us the origin story (our origin story) for how Levi the tax collector became Matthew the Gospel writer. Here in this passage, Jesus shows us how he forges a new unity, a new people, a new community, from those who used to be far off from God and separated from one another. Jesus brings us together, and he does so in the context of a feast.
  • So our text this morning we’ll divide into two main sections in relation to this feast.

Outline of the Text

• In verses 27-29, Jesus Attends a Feast.
• In verses 30-39,Jesus Defends the Feast.
  • Jesus attends a feast, then he defends his feasting.

Verses 27-28 – The Call of Levi

²⁷And after these things he went forth, and saw a publican [public official, tax collector], named Levi, sitting at the receipt of custom [toll booth]: and he said unto him, Follow me.

²⁸And he left all, rose up, and followed him.

• This scene is also recorded in Matthew 9 and in Mark 2. And here Luke identifies Matthew by the name Levi, which is of course the name of one of the original twelve sons of Jacob, which became the twelve tribes of Israel, and Levi the priestly tribe, from whom Moses and Aaron were descended.
• It is also significant that the name Levi, means to cleave, or to adhere, or to join together as in marital affection.
  • We find this meaning in Genesis 29:34, in the list of Leah’s sons when Levi is born, She conceived again and bore a son, and said, “Now this time my husband will become attached to me, because I have borne him three sons.” Therefore his name was called Levi.
  • In Hebrew, the verb for attach/join is לוה (Lava), and here Leah hopes that Jacob will attached to her, lava (יִלָּוֶ֤ה) because of this new son, and she calls his name לֵוִי (Levi).
• So Levi signifies attachment/joining/marital union. And what does Jesus command of this man who is attached? He said unto him, Follow me…and then it says, He left all, rose up, and followed him.
• What is Luke doing here? He is giving us a living illustration (a metaphor) of what Jesus is going to make explicit a few verses later. And that metaphor is that following Jesus, is like choosing to marry/cleave/attach yourself to God. Just as a man must leave father and mother, and cleave to his wife: and the two shall be one flesh, so also a man must forsake all and follow Jesus, and he shall be become one spirit with God, attached to Him. This is what the call of Levi signifies: de-taching from the world, and attaching to God.
  • If you want to follow Jesus, both of those things must happen. You must de-tach from your old life, your old ways, your old sins, and cleave to the new life that Jesus calls you to.
• We’ll see in verses 34-35, Jesus will call himself the Bridegroom, which in the Old Testament is one of the names for God. God “marries” Israel at Sinai; He makes a covenant with them. He promises to be a faithful Husband to them. But what happens? Israel commits idolatry, they fornicate with idols and commit adultery with the nations around them, and so God eventually divorces His people, He sends them away, but He promises to one day remarry them under a new covenant arrangement. This is one of the promises the prophets proclaim.
  • The book of Hosea is basically an extended sermon on this topic. Ezekiel 16 is a history of God’s relationship with Israel explained in these marital terms.
  • It says in Isaiah 62:4-5, You shall no longer be termed Forsaken, Nor shall your land any more be termed Desolate; But you shall be called Hephzibah [My delight is in her], and your land Beulah [married]; For the Lord delights in you, And your land shall be married. For as a young man marries a virgin, So shall your sons marry you; And as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, So shall your God rejoice over you.
• So to forsake all and follow Jesus, is to become a true Levite. It is to cleave to God instead of the world. It is to abandon your sins and your dishonest vocations, and to choose the honest labor of following Jesus instead.
• This is who Levi is, and by following Jesus his life is utterly transformed. He does not know it yet, but one day he will write the first inspired gospel, The Gospel According to Matthew. And this is how Jesus starts the church. This is who Jesus chooses to be one of the foundation stones in the New Jerusalem. He selects four fishermen, and now one tax collector (little do they know what they shall be). Four men who used to have to pay their taxes to Levi, and now they are all dining together as one new man. This is the new and peculiar unity that Jesus is forming around Him. And that unity will both attract sinners to come to Him, and also repel those who disapprove.
• Well, what does the new disciple Levi do next?

Verse 29 – Levi Throws a Feast

²⁹And Levi made him a great feast in his own house: and there was a great company of publicans and of others that sat down with them.

• Notice that to “forsake all and follow Jesus,” does not necessarily mean you have to liquidate everything and give it away. For some people, like the Rich Young Ruler, that may be necessary, but for Levi, Andrew, Peter, James and John, it meant leaving behind their businesses, their vocations and worldly commitments, in order to do God’s business.
  • We know this is true because after Peter follows Jesus, he still has a house, a wife, a mother-in-law, (probably a boat, cause they go fishing later and use a boat to cross the sea of Galilee) and it was likely his house where Jesus stayed during his visits to Capernaum (Mark 2:1).
  • And the same is true for Levi. He leaves his tax collecting business behind, but he makes a great feast for Jesus in his own house.
  • So the call to discipleship is a call to forsake whatever is in the way of you obeying Jesus completely. That includes all your sins, all your compromises, all your worldliness (yes you might have to delete Netflix, and all the music in your Spotify playlist). Jesus is Lord over all of it.
  • And then whatever is left after that purge, you must now surrender and reorder in subordination to Jesus’ kingdom. For example, the tithe is one of the ways we surrender all our finances to Jesus. Going to church every Lord’s Day, is one of the ways we surrender all our time to Jesus.
  • “We give him our first and our best and he blesses the rest.” This is the principle of loyalty to Christ as King. Jesus demands absolute loyalty, and therefore all rival loyalties must be either abandoned altogether or subordinated to Him. This is what it means to follow Jesus.
• Now this great feast that Levi throws, is probably not what you should think of as a private dinner party in Levi’s dining room. You should think of this scene more like Bilbo’s Birthday Party in the Lord of the Rings. All of Hobbiton knows this is happening. Almost everyone is invited, or at least it’s understood that this is a semi-public festival at Levi’s expense (he’s paying for the wine and the food). This explains why there are Scribes and Pharisees and disciples of John the Baptist all observing what Jesus is doing. This is a great feast in celebration and honor of Jesus, and it is how Levi is casting his net to haul in all his tax collector buddies. Levi has seen the light, and he wants everyone else to see that same light. Levi has a new joy in being forgiven, and he wants that joy to be shared with all. No true Christian wants to go to heaven alone, we want everyone else to join us, and that is what Levi is doing. And that is what we should do as well.
• Where there is joy and festivity with Jesus, there you can also find critics, complainers, people murmuring that this is unbecoming of a holy man.
• This brings us to verses 30-32 where Jesus defends his feasting.

Verses 30-32 – A Party Complaint

³⁰But their scribes and Pharisees murmured against his disciples, saying, Why do ye eat and drink with publicans and sinners?

³¹And Jesus answering said unto them, They that are whole [healthy] need not a physician; but they that are sick.

³²I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

• Are these words not sweet to you? To know that the only requirement to come to Jesus is that you bring to him all of your sins. The sign over Jesus’ doctor’s office, is “Only those terminally ill need enter.” Only those who are desperately sick and wicked can be healed here.
  • This is the universal gospel call. It begins with the bad news that, All have sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God. And the wages for your sins, is death. And the good news is that the one who conquered death, can give you eternal life.
• So the ministry of Jesus is a ministry of mercy from front to back. Andeven his righteous judgments are founded upon a most merciful patience and toleration of the proud and obstinate. Jesus loves Pharisees too.
  • He says in John 9:39-41, “For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind.” Then some of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these words, and said to Him, “Are we blind also?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, ‘We see.’ Therefore your sin remains.
  • Meaning, the person who confesses their blindness, who knows that their sin runs deep and even deeper than they know, they are the person who is seeing clearly, and they shall be forgiven.
  • But the person who denies their sinfulness, who judges themselves to be righteous in the eyes of God, and therefore not in need of Jesus to heal them, their sins remain. Their blindness remains.
• Jesus is the light that has come into the world. And as 1 John 1:7 says, If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. This is how Jesus brings us together in the light.
• So Levi is throwing a feast of forgiveness. A feast for sinners to be called to repentance.
  • And the logic of Jesus’ defense to the Pharisees is this: What sickness is to the body, sin is to the whole person. And the way that Jesus heals sinners, is by calling them to forsake their sins and follow Him just like Levi did. This is what repentance is. This is actually what the Pharisees claimed to want for the Jewish nation, separation from sin so that God would bless them. But instead, what they had become is a self-righteous sect, who had exchanged the defects of ritual/ceremonial impurity (some according to the law, some according to laws they invented), and they traded that ritual impurity, for the sins of pride and contempt. They exchanged lesser sins for greater sins, which is never a good trade.
  • Jesus points this out in Matthew 23:23, Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.
• So you can sin like a tax collector, or you can sin like a Pharisees. But the common denominator that levels all humanity, is that all are dead in trespasses and sins. All are terminally ill and need Jesus to save us. Levi acknowledged this, the Pharisees would not. And that is what kept them from coming into the feast.
• The only thing that keeps people out of the kingdom, is their own unwillingness to enter.
  • Jesus says in Matthew 21:31, Assuredly, I say to you that tax collectors and harlots enter the kingdom of God before you.
  • And in Matthew 23:13 he says, But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.
  • Pride has prevented innumerable souls from coming to the Great Physician. Just as many people refuse to see their doctor for treatment, so also many people refuse the free medicine of immortality that Jesus gives from the cross.
• So this is how Jesus defends his feasting. Why is he there? He is there to invite sinners to an eternal feast through faith and repentance.
• This brings us to our last section in verses 33-39, where a second question is asked about feasting and fasting.

Verses 33-35 – On Feasting & Fasting

³³And they said unto him, Why do the disciples of John fast often, and make prayers, and likewise the disciples of the Pharisees; but thine eat and drink?

³⁴And he said unto them, Can ye make the children of the bridechamber fast, while the bridegroom is with them?

³⁵But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days.

• Here Jesus identifies himself as the Bridegroom, and his disciples are children of the bridechamber, or what we would call today, the groomsmen, or some translations have wedding guests.
  • John the Baptist understood this distinction in John 3:29-30, He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease.
  • John understood that his role was to be the friend of the bridegroom, pointing people to Jesus, the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. He knew his ministry was to stand in contrast to Jesus’ ministry, so that later Jesus could say to them, For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine; and ye say, He hath a devil. The Son of man is come eating and drinking; and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners! But wisdom is justified by her children (Luke 7:33-35).
• So Jesus explains that feasting and fasting is dependent upon the time and occasion. And that His presence as the Bridegroom of Israel, is the occasion for joy, festivity, and gladness. However, when Jesus is no longer present in the body, a time for fasting will come, it’s just not here yet.
  • When he is taken away by death we’ll see the disciples mourn and weep. And we see in the book of Acts, that the disciples will fast when there is a special occasion to do so. Those occasions being: for prayer, for the ordination of officers in the church, and the sending of missionaries, and from necessity in times of persecution.
  • Paul says in 2 Corinthians 11:27, I am…In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often…
  • And he says in 1 Corinthians 7:5 that an occasion for husband and wife to not come together is that with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer.
• So fasting has its place in the Christian life, and so does joyful feasting. Wisdom is justified by her children.
• Now Jesus concludes his answer on feasting and fasting with two parables and an observation. The parable of the garment, the parable of wineskins, and the observation that our tastes take time to change.

Verses 36-39 – Parables on Patience

³⁶And he spake also a parable unto them; No man putteth a piece of a new garment upon an old; if otherwise, then both the new maketh a rent, and the piece that was taken out of the new agreeth not with the old.

³⁷And no man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish.

³⁸But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved.

³⁹No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better.

• What do these parables/proverbs mean?
  • The nice thing about proverbs/parables is also what makes them so difficult: they can apply to so many different things.
  • But if we start here with the most immediate context, the principle becomes clear. The context is feasting and fasting, specifically the customs of Jesus’ disciples compared with John’s and the Pharisees (fasting and prayer).
  • So, customs of discipleship are what Jesus is giving an answer to. And if that is the case, then I think verse 39 is actually the summary principle of the two parables before it. The principle is: No man, having drunk old wine, immediately desires new; for he says, ‘The old is better.’”
    • Put another way, Jesus is saying, God knows people are resistant and slow to change. But He is patient, and so He does not require right now of his disciples, what later they will themselves desire to do (fast and pray in his absence).
    • Or to use a different metaphor that might be more relatable, if it’s your first day in the gym, you don’t try to bench press twice your body-weight, or you will probably tear a muscle. Or, if it is your first day running track, don’t try to run a marathon, you’ll die!
    • We need time to learn new things. We need time to acquire new affections, new rituals, to develop new habits.
      • As an aside, this is why I sometimes joke with you that “our church is for those who are ten and under.” Because worshipping the way we do, with the Psalms we do, with the depth of content and doctrine that I try to teach you, is new or unfamiliar for many of you. But if you start young, this becomes the air you breathe. Our children are new wineskins, and so we pour in the new wine early when they are most elastic.
  • Now returning to our scene, in Jesus, a new and marvelous thing has come, a new garment, a new wine, a new creation, new sacraments, new customs that different from the Mosaic law, a new day to worship on. And Jesus understands that this will take time, even a whole generation for some of them to adjust to.
    • Later he will teach that the kingdom of God is like a little bit of leaven that eventually leavens the whole loaf. The kingdom of God is like a stone cut without human hands, that eventually grows into a great mountain that fills the whole earth. It’s like a little stream, that eventually becomes a river too deep to cross. God likes to take small and obscure and despised beginnings, and then building castles, cathedrals, majestic mountains out of them. And he would do that for you and in you if you cooperate with Him.
    • In Psalm 102:25-27, David speaks of the future transformation of the whole cosmos saying, Of old You laid the foundation of the earth, And the heavens are the work of Your hands. They will perish, but You will endure; Yes, they will all grow old like a garment; Like a cloak You will change them, And they will be changed. But You are the same, And Your years will have no end.
• Well eventually the time will come for the new wine to be poured into new wineskins. For the old garment to be cast off and thrown away, and a new one to be put on altogether. When does this happen for Jesus’ disciples?
  • I think this happens definitively at Pentecost. Recall what is said of the disciples when the Holy Spirit is poured out upon them.
    • It says in Acts 2:12-13, And they were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this? Others mocking said, These men are full of new wine.
  • Remember, Luke wrote Acts, it is the continuation of this gospel story. And Acts 2:13 is the only time that this phrase “new wine” is used outside of the gospels. And so the new wine and new garment is the Holy Spirit and all that He gives, it is grace, it is power from on high, it is supernatural love, it is sobriety, self-control, and a sound mind. Paul says in Romans 14:17, For the kingdom of God is not food and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. This is the true feast the Holy Spirt brings. This is the new wine of spiritual joy within our hearts.
  • And how is this new wine given to others? It is given through the preaching of the gospel. The first thing Peter does after He is filled with this new wine of the Holy Spirit, is stand up and preach a sermon. It says in Acts 2:38, Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
    • In other words, you can have this new wine too. Repent and be baptized.
  • It says in Ezekiel 18:30-32, Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye.

Conclusion

Do you want the new wine of grace, of forgiveness, of fellowship with God? Then cast off the old garment, put to death the old man with his sinful habits, and put on the Lord Jesus Christ, receive the Holy Spirit. And He will change you from a sinner into a saint. He will change you from being self-righteous, to being actually righteous, and all through the blood of His cross. May God do this for you, in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.