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Putting New Wine in this Old Wineskin
By Linda Rex
Recently I spent several hours in the emergency room because my heart was in atrial defibrillation and would not go back to a regular rhythm until I had been given several medications. I do not know yet what the real reason for this episode is yet—I have a couple tests the cardiologist wants to put me through first. But I do know that having an event like this in my life has given me an opportunity to simply appreciate the moments I have left, as well as the relationships God has blessed me with over the years.
Going through this is also helping me once again to face the over-fifty reality that I’m getting older and my health is not what it used to be. Genetics, lifestyle consequences, you name it—it all adds up to, I can’t do everything I used to be able to do. My mind and my will may want to do certain things, but my body just can’t take it anymore, whether I like it or not.
When I worked at the care center I used to laugh with the seniors about this. We’d agree that just like a fine wine, we don’t get older, we get better and more refined with age. It’s not that getting older is so bad, it’s just having to live with the body that goes with it—it just doesn’t work like it used to and that’s no fun.
Sometime in the midst of my musings over my forced rest from any stress or exertion, my morning reading included the passage in Matthew 9 where Jesus talked about not patching an old piece of clothing with new cloth, and not putting new wine into old wineskins. For some reason this really stuck out in my mind, probably because our lectionary passage for Sunday is the story about Jesus turning water into wine.
Jesus had this deal about wine. I think it’s pretty funny that Jesus would do an “in your face” type of move like turning the water used for ritual washing into wine for drinking. How like him! And he didn’t just make enough for the day’s meal. He made more than one hundred gallons! There could be some serious inebriation going on with that amount of wine at the wedding. But that didn’t seem to matter to him.
Changing water used for ritual washing into wine to drink—there are a lot of ramifications to what he did when he did this simple miracle. When he talked about the importance of not putting new wine into old wineskins, he was talking about something similar, but totally different as well. The first things most commentators point out about both is that Jesus was pointing out the reality that the old way of the Jewish temple worship was to be superseded by the living Messiah, who would be both our sacrificial Lamb and our High Priest. The old way of approaching God and worshiping him was being replaced with the new way of the ministry of the Spirit through Christ.
But it struck me this week that there was a lot more going on here than just the removal of an old sacrificial system through the coming of the Messiah. Indeed, Jesus did a lot more than just create a new way of worshiping God. What he did in sharing our humanity, dying our death and rising again was so much more than just that.
We learn in Ephesians 1 and elsewhere that before time God intended humanity to share his life and love as his adopted children. But as we were, we could not hold the majesty of the life of the Trinity within us in the way that God wanted us to. We could not share in the divine life the way God intended us to. Truly, God holds all things and nothing exists outside of him. But there was a lack in our human capacity to relate to and grasp the spiritual realities we were created to exist within. We could only see ourselves as alienated from God and unworthy of his love. In many ways our humanity was like those old wineskins. If God would have tried to pour into us the fullness of his glory and love would we not have been broken? For surely God offered us his life, but we rejected it.
Jesus in coming into our humanity, dying and rising again created for all of us a new wineskin, and then sent his Holy Spirit to dwell in human hearts. What amazing love God has that he would do whatever it took so that we could share in the divine life and love! Now, as Jesus said it would be, we have the amazing gift of the indwelling Father and Son in the Spirit. New wine in these old wineskins that have been made new so they could contain that new wine. Instead of those old clothes that are patched and worn, God gave us new wedding clothes.
And there I am, back at the wedding again, where there’s an overabundance of wine. Surely God’s Spirit is limitless and God has poured out on us the tremendous precious gift of his Spirit who brings all God’s blessings into full expression in us and in our world as we participate actively in the divine life and love. Drink in of this wonderful luxury—God’s Presence in us and with us at every moment, as we are held in union with God through Christ, and experience loving communion with God and one another in the Spirit. That’s some wedding!
Thank you, Father, for inviting all of us to the wedding of your Son to his beautiful Bride, and for creating in Christ a new humanity to be filled with your divine Presence in the Spirit. How wonderful that we all may live each moment in anticipation of the day when we can sit at this wedding feast in glory, but thank you also that even now we sit in glory with you through Christ in the Spirit and can drink in of that heady glorious wine of eternity each and every moment of every day. In your Name, Father, Son and Spirit. Amen.
“Nor do people put new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the wineskins burst, and the wine pours out and the wineskins are ruined; but they put new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved.” Matthew 9:17 NASB
“And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled out, and the skins will be ruined. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. And no one, after drinking old wine wishes for new; for he says, ‘The old is good enough.’ ” Luke 5:37–39 NASB
The New Year and the Blessing of Snow
By Linda Rex
It was almost Christmas Day and I was listening to yet another Christmas carol. The thought came to my mind that a lot of these Christmas songs, and the movies that come out this time of year, are about winter and specifically, snow. What’s the big deal about snow, anyway?
Well, I’m sure there are a lot of reasons that snow is considered an important part of people’s celebration of this day. But the reason I like the idea of snow being associated with Jesus’ birth is that it is a reminder that Jesus came to give all of us a new start.
It’s like when the dirty dingy sidewalks and the brown grass suddenly disappear under a thick coat of new snow. When everything is caught in the silent beauty of a falling snow that is covering everything with glittering whiteness, it’s easy to believe that there are new possibilities for life. All of a sudden we see things in a new way.
God calls us to the joy and wonder of a new start when he says: “Come now, and let us reason together,” says the LORD, “Though your sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool.” (Isaiah 1:18) Christ’s life was all about new beginnings, about giving each of us a clean slate.
Here we pause at the beginning of a New Year, a new year full of new possibilities and new beginnings. Each of us has been given another year in which to live life to the fullness in a relationship of love with the Father, Son and Spirit and with one another. We look out onto a yard full of snowy whiteness and we consider what we will do.
There are so many possibilities! Some of us will run out in our snowboots and hats and will start making snowmen and snow angels. Some of us will complain about the mess and get out our snowblowers to get rid of the snow. Some of us will just sit and gaze on the snow through the windows, wistfully wishing we could enjoy it. And some of us will go out and start a snowball fight.
In every case, we find that we are given the opportunity to do something new in our lives. We have the opportunity to be creative and build something, or do something useful with what’s been given. We can be productive and helpful or wasteful and destructive. We can experience joy and have fun in the midst of the new life God has given us, or we can wallow in negativity.
What will your New Year be like? My wish for all of you is that you will experience in a deep, real way the Presence of God in your lives each and every day of this New Year, and that as you walk with the Triune God, you will grow in his faith, hope and love. May you experience God’s fullest blessings in 2016!
Holy God, thank you for wiping our slate clean and giving us a new start. Thank you that we can experience new beginnings all the time—with each new day, month and year, even each moment—because of what you have done for us in your Son. Give us the heart to offer this same grace to each person in our lives as you offer it to us. Through Jesus and in your Spirit we pray. Amen.
“There is an appointed time for everything.
And there is a time for every event under heaven
A time to give birth and a time to die;
A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted.
A time to kill and a time to heal;
A time to tear down and a time to build up.
A time to weep and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn and a time to dance.
A time to throw stones and a time to gather stones;
A time to embrace and a time to shun embracing.
A time to search and a time to give up as lost;
A time to keep and a time to throw away.
A time to tear apart and a time to sew together;
A time to be silent and a time to speak.
A time to love and a time to hate;
A time for war and a time for peace.”
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 NASB
Our Life in the Trinity 