Do you re-use old things? There comes a time when you can’t.

 

One day, browsing on my phone, a status about the correct use of latex gloves, aimed at the medical fraternity, caught my attention. It spoke of the porous nature of the latex, and the need for hand washing to be observed before and after use to protect both the medic and the patient and to only use the gloves once. If principles this simple promote better health when followed, wouldn’t spiritual health also benefit from following wise principles?

 

What Jesus said about new wine in old wineskins, in our verse today, resonates here. The old wineskins that Jesus spoke about were not porous like the gloves, but brittle with age, and couldn’t be used again for new wine. This metaphor described the rigid, religious traditions of the day that were outdated, and could not hold the new teachings that Jesus exemplified.

 

Yet He told them, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them.” (Matthew 5:17)

 

Jesus – God with us – was the One prophesied from the beginning, who came to fulfil the Law by living it. He in no way did away with what seemed to be a complex set of rules, but personified it and provided a vibrant, living faith for his followers to embrace, which logically, the “old wineskins”, that had nurtured and prepared them for his coming, wouldn’t be able to hold.

 

The new covenant that Jesus ushered in spoke of a totally new experience of God among them, a new understanding of relationship with him as he engaged with ‘sinners’, ate with tax-collectors, and taught that the kingdom of God had come.

 

Displaying God’s grace in action, Jesus forgave sins, healed the sick – in body, mind and spirit – and showed God’s nearness; different from before, when, through the Law, God had appeared distant. Jesus preached, “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news.” (Mark 1:15)

 

The new life of forgiveness, love, and righteousness evident in the new believers showed the work of the Spirit, alive and active, producing new wine in robust wineskins, because when Jesus forgives our sin, he makes us new creatures alive to his Spirit. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” (2 Corinthians 5:7,ESV)

 

Are we experiencing this new wine in strong, supple wineskins, or are they brittle – or flimsy – as we cling to old ways and old ideas, stuck in our comfort zone?

 

May the joy the new wine brings find us!

 

Prayer: Father God, help me to fully embrace my relationship with you and leave my old ways and ideas behind so that your Spirit may produce new wine in me that will glorify you, through Jesus Christ. Amen