Living Stones – Monday, January 1, 2018
New wine
Matthew 9:17
“… they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”
A toast to the New Year! Many of us are looking back on how hard last year was, thinking that we really survived it on crumbs, yet, there are some others for whom last year was a very good year.
Regardless of what kind of year the last one was for you, here, in the opening stages of the New Year, we are all desiring new things. Those who were on crumbs want the real loaf, and those who had bread want to see it well buttered.
The desires we have cover a broad range of the areas of our lives, and that of our family, businesses, community and other endeavours. Those desires must, of necessity, include your spiritual life and the life of your church.
Many contemporary Christians, especially those in the Evangelical and Pentecostal wings, have developed a tradition of fasting and prayer at the beginning of the New Year. In many cases, these fasts are now becoming a routine on the calendar and, as a result, are losing their significance as a means of change for those participating.
Fasting should help us focus on our spiritual life, growth and development. We should fast because (1) we want to be heard by God, (2) we want to see a change in direction in our lives, (3) we want captives to be set free, (4) we want victory in our battles, and (5) we want to receive revelation … in other words we want to experience an outpouring of the Holy Spirit to transform our lives and the life of the church.
I mention the fast here because Jesus was asked a question about fasting and he provided an answer and then extended his answer with twin illustrations about patching an old garment and preparing for new wine. Matthew 9:14-17. The second illustration seems appropriate for New Year’s Day with all the new things we are hoping for in our lives in the New Year.
Of course, we have to get past the fact that Jesus used a wine metaphor, this after He had turned water into wine at His mother’s insistence in what appeared to be a family wedding. Many Christians today struggle with the wine issue in more ways than one. There is no plan to resolve that issue in this devotional, so we’ll just stick to the teaching from the text.
Wine – the fermented juice of grapes (and other fruits) was an important drink in the ancient world. Wine was consumed daily at meals (Genesis 14:18); wine was used as medicine (The Good Samaritan used oil and wine to treat the wounds of the beaten man, Luke 10:34) and Paul told Timothy to take some to help with digestion, 1 Timothy 5:23; wine was used for feasting and celebration (Esther 1:7-8 & Isaiah 25:6); wine was used in coronations (1 Chronicles 12:38-40); and wine was used at wedding celebrations (John 2:1-11)
To appreciate Jesus’s metaphor, we need a quick education into two other subjects, “new wine” and “wineskins.” New wine is wine from the most recent harvest. Several types of wine were consumed. “New” or “sweet” wine was likely wine from the first drippings of juice before the grapes had been trodden or pressed. Wineskins were made from animal skins. The skins of goats, with the hair removed, was used to make containers for water, milk and wine.
So the grapes were trodden underfoot or pressed by some mechanisation to extract the juice for fermentation to produce wine. This fresh juice, new wine, was then poured and stored in the new wineskins and, as the juice fermented, chemical reactions worked on the wineskin to preserve it.
Every year, at the time of the grape harvest when new grapes are going to be pressed for their juice, new wineskins were made. We are living in an age of recycling and so we must ask the question, what is wrong with reusing the old wineskins?
Fermentation stretches the wineskin. During the fermentation process, gasses are released causing pressure to be exerted on the skin. With a new skin, there is elasticity so that the skin could expand in response to this pressure and no wine would be lost. Old wineskins, however, are already stretched by the previous fermentation process and so the skin is no longer supple, it is hard and inflexible and could burst under pressure and the wine would be lost.
Transformation, success, the realisation of our goals or the fulfilment of our desires in this New Year will not be as a result of us making resolutions again, especially those New Year resolutions that are not really new but recycled over the last few years.
Achievement requires a radical approach to the New Year. The New Year gives us a chance to reset, to take advantage of new releases, new opportunities, new ideas, new resources, and sometimes even new relationships. All of this is like new wine, but we must be careful not to bring our old selves, old wineskins. Our old stretched, brittle, inflexible selves won’t handle this new outpouring.
We need a new attitude, a new commitment to holiness, a new commitment to God, to family, to church, and a new commitment to service. You need to work on you in order for you to work on all the things you desire and want to achieve.
Whether you are planning on fasting or not, this chronos moment is an opportunity for each of us to take stock of where we have arrived, and to make plans for where we would like to be.
Too many of us mark time as Christians and no longer experience any growth, we don’t even know any longer what Christian growth should look like. Too many of us are stuck in relationships that take away from us rather than enable us. Too many of us are rehashing the same plans and dreams from repeated New Year’s Days past.
Think on these things:
- What are your desires for the New Year, are these really new or are they recycled from what has not been achieved in the past year or two?
- What changes do you need to make in your life in order to be like a new wineskin?
- Is your challenge on the new wine side or on the wineskin side?
Prayer focus:
Let us pray today that we would properly prepare ourselves for what God will make available for us during this New Year.
In His Grace
Pastor Alex
