Sermons on Matthew's Gospel (2)
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The King is at Work - New Wine must have New Wineskins!
Matthew 9:14–17 (NIV84)
Then John’s disciples came and asked him, “How is it that we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?”
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.
“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. Neither do men 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.”
Matthew chapters 8-9 serve to show us that when King Jesus is at work lives are transformed as people are healed of their diseases; demons are cast out; sins are forgiven and sinners, previously sick with sin are welcomed to follow Jesus.
God is building His Kingdom with living stones of men and women who are becoming followers of King Jesus!
However there is also growing criticism; enmity and outright rejection of King Jesus, particulary from the religious establishment, the scribes and Pharisees and other secular and religious authorities, as they become increasingly concerend of Jesus’ growing influence and popularity among the ordinary people.
So we see here, Jesus the King enduring...
1. CALCULATED CRITICISM:
This question, which hints at criticism comes from the “disciples of John” (see Cf. Matt 11:2; 14:12; Luke 11:1;Acts 18:25; 19:3) a group of loyal followers of John the Baptist whose existence continued for some time, and it follows on from the criticism made to the disciples at Matthew’s house: “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?”
John’s disciples presumably joined the Pharisees in observing not only the one fast required in the Old Testament law for the Day of Atonement and other fasts which were regularly engaged in before religious as well as a growing regular round of routine weekly fasts. As John the Baptist engaged in ascetic practices, as Jesus said “neither eating or drinking”,(Matt 11:18) he set an example of fasting and alcoholic abstinance that his own disciples followed! Mark 2:18.
John the Baptist Himself was now in prison (Matt 4:12) and shortly after he baptized Jesus, John in effect turned his disciples over to Jesus, saying, “You yourselves can testify, that I said, ‘I am not the Christ,’ but, ‘I have been sent ahead of Him … He must become greater, I must become less” (John 3:28-30).
However, not all of the disciples of John began to follow Jesus, and we know from the New Testament, long after Pentecost the apostle Paul encountered some of them in Ephesus who only knew the faith of “John’s baptism” (Acts 19:1–3).
The question they had for Jesus and His disciples, reflected a similar concern, perhaps sincerely, about Jesus’ teaching and activities that did not conform to the accepted religious standards.
This is not to imply that Jesus did not keep the required fast on the Day of Atonement, but it appears that He did not follow the weekly Pharisaic and Johannine routine of fasting and instead He was developing a reputation as one who was a bit of a party-goer!
This was calculated criticism as it was being directed by those who felt they had most to lose by the sudden advent and influence of Jesus! It was not honest enquiry; it was not an open and frank debate about theology or its application, this is about weaponising truth in order to make ad hominem attacks on the Son of God.
You see they understood His caims well enought, as C.S. Lewis wonderfully summised in his book “God in the Dock”: “Here is another curious remark: in almost every religion there are unpleasant observances like fasting. This Man suddenly remarks one day, ‘No one need fast while I am here.’ Who is this man who remarks one day, ‘No one need fast while I am here.’ Who is this Man who remarks that His mere presence suspends all normal rules?” For His critics, this is as bad as saying you have “power on earth to forgive sins” or “before Abraham was, I Am!” They knew exactly what He was claiming and they rejected it!
And this is deliberate and wilful blindness - a sin against the Holy Spirit! Jesus, in speaking to His disciples, summed up the state of the majority of people in Israel, "Seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand" (Matthew 13:13).
Though there were many factors that led the Jewish people to reject Jesus as their Messiah, it can be stated simply: they did not believe in Him because they did not want to believe.
It is the same reason most people throughout history have rejected Jesus as Messiah. It is not that they could not believe, it is that they would not believe. It is not that people need more evidence, it is that they do not act upon the evidence that they have.
This can be seen in the reaction of the Pharisees to the rasing of Lazarus from the dead. You would think that such a miracle would at least make them consider believing in Jesus as the Messiah, because from their own testimony they never saw anyone do such miracles but instead we read “from that day on they plotted to put him to death” (John 11:53) and not only so, “the chief priests took counsel that they might also put Lazarus to death, because on account of him many of the Jews went away and believed in Jesus “(John 12:10,11).
People still reject Jesus today of course, and they have a variety of reasons for doing so but the great question we all need to answer is not, as C.S.Lewis again memorably said in his wonderful book, “God in the Dock” : “For the real question is not what are we to make of Christ, but what is He to make of us?” Lewis goes on to point out that “...The things he says are very different from what any other teacher has said. Others say, ‘This is the truth about the universe. This is the way you ought to go,’ but He says, ‘I am the Truth, and the Way, and the Life.’ He says, ‘No man can reach absolute reality, except through Me. Try to retain your own life and you will be inevitably ruined. Give yourself away and you will be saved.; He says, ‘If you are ashamed of Me, if, when you hear this call, you turn the other way, I also will look the other way when I come again as God without disguise. If anything whatever is keeping you from God and from me, whatever it is, throw it away. If it is your eye, pull it out. If it is your hand, cut it off. If you put yourself first you will be last. Come to Me everyone who is carrying a heavy load, I will set that right. Your sins, all of them, are wiped out, I can do that. I am Re-birth, I am Life. Eat ME, drink Me, I am your Food. And finally, do not be afraid, I have overcome the whole Universe.’ That is the issue.”
All of us must answer the question that Jesus asked of the disciples, “who do you say that I am?” All of us are invited to agree with Peter that He is “the Christ the Son of the living God” and “by believing’ this, you will ‘have life in His name”!
Or you can reject Him as a mere prophet or moralist or political agitator - you can call into question His teaching and His miracles and the eficacy of His death and deny its relevance to you.
Calculated criticis, designed to evade and avoid faith in Jesus! The choice is yours, upon it rests your eternal hope and destiny!
Next we see Jesus the King talking about....
2. FEASTING AND FASTING:
Jesus liked a feast and was already gaining a reputation as He indicated in His own words in Matthew 11:19 “The Son of Man, on the other hand, feasts and drinks, and you say, ‘He’s a glutton and a drunkard, and a friend of tax collectors and other sinners!’
So the issue is why does Jesus feast so much when he ought to be fasting in the opinion at least of His religious critics. To which 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.”
(1). A time to feast:
Again this is provocative on Jesus’ part becasue in descrbing Himself as a bridegroom, He is applying to himself an Old Testament image for God in his relationship to Israel - “No longer will they call you Deserted, or name your land Desolate. But you will be called Hephzibah(my delight), and your land Beulah(married) for the Lord will take delight in you, and your land will be married. As a young man marries a maiden, so will your sonsc marry you; as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you.” (Isa 62:4–5).
This is another one of those magnificent claims that Jesus makes for Himself. In the Old Testament God pictured himself as the husband of his people Israel (Jeremiah 2:2; Jeremiah 3:20; Ezekiel 16:8; Hosea 2:19) and now Jesus takes this claim upon Himself. God is with us! Jesus is Israel’s bridegroom. He is here and this is a time to rejoice and be glad not to fast and mourn!
And that’s the point, A wedding is a time of joy, not of asceticism. In Jesus day a wedding could last for up to 7 days, and the bridegroom would choose his best friends as attendants to be responsible for the festivities. The wedding celebration was to be a joyous occasion in which you would not walk down the aisle to “Lead kindly light, amidst the encircling gloom.”
Weddings are a time to rejoice and Jesus’ makes the point to show how inappropriate it is for His followers to mourn and fast while He is with them in person. Fasting is out of harmony with what God was then doing in their midst. are being called including Gentiles “from the east and west to take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.””(Matt 8:11). And sinners as seen in Matthew 9:10 as Jesus “was having dinner at Matthew’s house” with “many tax-collectors and sinners” eating “with Him and His disciples”(Matt 9:10).
The spiritual principle enunciated here is that when there is no reason to mourn there is no reason to fast! And that’s the point about fasting! Fasting springs naturally from a broken and grieving heart - “blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted”(Matt 5:4).
Jesus then does not repudiate fasting as Matt 9:15 and Matt 6:16–18 show, rather He says, fasting has a place at appropriate times as does feasting - the two are not mutually exclusive!
(ii). A time to fast.
So in accepting the appopriateness of feasting, Jesus does not reject the appropriateness of fasting, both are needed and appropriate for servants of the Kingdom of Heaven!
This is why we see the Early Church engaging in fasting in Acts 13:2–3; 14:23 as fasting is a means of seeking the presence and face of God; in the person of Jesus Christ, God was with his people. This is why it took place on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement (see Lev. 16:29-31), where the phrase “humble your souls” commonly involved the idea of refraining from food.
There was nothing wrong at all in principle with the Pharisaic tradition of fasting “twice a week” on Monday’s and Thursdays(Luke 18:12). The issue was however that according to Jesus they made sure that others knew it. He describes how they disfigured or literally ‘make invisible’ their faces. (Matt 6:9–20), a vivid expression meaning to make unrecognizable, either by covering the head or by smearing with ash and dirt. This was a time for showing off what they were doing, hardly a humbling of soul!
And this you see is the problem with rituals. They can become routine and empty gestures. Meaningless habits done for show, rather than in recongition of thanksgiving or need.
And this can happen to our worship as well! Praying; the singing of religious songs and hymns can all be empty rituals if we do not “worship in Spirit and in truth”(John 4:20).
However that should not stop us from fasting! Just as the danger of praying to be heard by people so they can delight in our wodnerfl prayers should not deter us from praying - The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.”
John’s disciples had lost their ‘bridegroom’, who was already in prison (Matt 4:12), so they had reason to mourn. The same would be true one day for Jesus’ disciples.
And note the words “taken away”. This is not merely implying to “leave” but rather it echoes the sudden and violent removal of Jesus, referring to His crucifixion, which would abruptly and violently take Him away from His followers, as stated in Isaiah 53:8 “By oppression and judgment He was taken away”.
So, Jesus is not opposed to fasting! Indeed, He assumes that fasting will continue to be practised among his disciples, as indeed it was, after his death (Acts 13:2–3; 14:23) and He teaches His disciples that in contrast to the Pharisees, they are to avoid showiness when doing it, but instead look quite normal, clean and happy: “When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.Interestingly, Jesus’ response is that it is not appropriate for the disciples to fast while he is with them.” (Matt 6:16).
Interestingly, and not surprisingly then fasting has a long history in the Christian church:
The Didache, a manual of church instruction from near the end of the 1st century AD says, “Let not your fasts be with the hypocrites, for they fast on Mondays and Thursdays, but do your fast on Wednesdays and Fridays.” (7:1) The reference to hypocrites appears to be a dig at the Pharisees but it is also an attempt to encourage Christians to distance themselves from the emptiness of fasting, without losing the value of the regularity of the practice
That this twice a week fasting was regularly and universally practised by Christians is confirmed by Epiphanius, a bishop in Italy in the 5th century AD said, “Who does not know that the fast of the fourth and sixth days of the week are observed by Christians throughout the world?”
Likewise, Protestant wReformers reestablished the importance of fasting even though it had been so often used as a meritorious ritual in the Roman Catholic Church. John Calvin, in His Institutues of the Christian Religion said: “Let us say something about fasting, because many, for want of knowing its usefulness, undervalue its necessity, and some reject it as almost superfluous; while, on the other hand where the use of it is not well understood, it easily degenerates into superstition. Holy and legitimate fasting is directed to three ends; for we practice it either as a restraint on the flesh, to preserve it from licentiousness, or as a preparation for prayers and pious meditations, or as a testimony of our humiliation in the presence of God when we are desirous of confessing our guilt before him.” (Institutes, IV.12, 14, 15)
Martin Luther advised his fellow Lutheran ministers, “Of fasting I say this: It is right to fast frequently in order to subdue and control the body. For when the stomach is full, the body does not serve for preaching, for praying, or studying, or for doing anything else that is good. Under such circumstances God's Word cannot remain. But one should not fast with a view to meriting something by it as by a good work.”
More recently the evangelical church in South Korea has exemplified the importance of prayer and fasting by scanning their history with the first Protestant church planted in Korea in 1884 which by 1984 there were 30,000 churches. That's an average of 300 new churches a year for 100 years. To give you an indication of its growth in population terms, there were 1.6 million Christians in 1950, which more than tripled to 5.7 million in 1970, and then nearly trippling again to 14.7 million by 2000.
Evangelicals now comprise around 33% of the population. Yes there has been fearless preaching and initiatives in evangelism but there has been dynamic prayer, and times of fasting an seeking God with the Overseas Missionary Society suggesting that in their associate churches alone more than 20,000 people have completed a 40-day fast many in one of their "prayer houses" in the mountains.
So, we must not miss the point here that Jesus makes - fasting is appropriate for Christians when He is away from us!, particulary when we are stuggling with sin or circumstances and we are seeking a breakthrough from God in some national or international crises or in church life or evangelism in our hardenened and indifferent communities.
We may be seeking more of God’s presence; a clear direction on our lives(see Acts 13:1-3). A blessing upon our church leaders and their ministries(see Acts 14:23); a healing from a persistent illness; a breakthrough in stubborn circumstances and so we are moved to not only pray but to fast!
You see, though Jesus is always present with us by his Spirit, Paul nonetheless reminds us in 2 Corinthians 5:6-8 "As long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. We live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say and would prefer to be absent from the body and at home with the Lord." “In other words, in this age there is an ache and a longing—a homesickness—inside every Christian that Jesus is not here as fully and intimately and as powerfully and as gloriously as we want him to be. And that is why we fast.”(John Piper).
For most of us this will mean abstaining from food for a period of time but for others it might not be appropriate because of health issues, so it can be abstaining from television; from others hobbies and passtimes in order to have a time set aside for prayer and hubling ourselves before God. It’s worth remembering that Isaiah 58:2-9 talks about the type of fast God approves of which includes ensuring good relations and social justice to the poor and oppressed rather than merely just going through the motions of praying and ritualistic fasting.
Dr Martin Lloyd-Jones said in his great book on the Sermon on the Mount, “Fasting, if we conceive of it truly, must not . . . be confined to the question of food and drink; fasting should really be made to include abstinence from anything which is legitimate in and of itself for the sake of some special spiritual purpose. There are many bodily functions which are right and normal and perfectly legitimate, but which for special peculiar reasons in certain circumstances should be controlled. That is fasting.”
And se we fast not because we do not know Jesus; not because we are not forgiven but previsely because we want to know Him more! Because we know that being with Him is the best of all experiences; the fullest of all joys; the loveliest of loves! We long for Him because the the new wine of Christ's presence is so real and so satisfying.
John Wesley, who did great work for God and for the salvation of souls in the UK exhorted his Methodists: “Have you any days of fasting and prayer? Storm the throne of grace and persevere therein, and mercy will come down.”
Bill Bright of Campus Crusade for Christ contended: “I believe the power of fasting as it relates to prayer is the spiritual atomic bomb that our Lord has given us to destroy the strongholds of evil and usher in a great revival and spiritual harvest around the world.”
Finally we see Jesus descibing life in the Kingdom of Heaven as...
3. EXPLOSIVE EXHUBERANCE:
Jesus and official Judaism were scarcely compatible, as Matthew 9:16–17 indicates.
“Try to fit Jesus’ new work into the thought-forms and behaviour-patterns of John’s movement or the Pharisees’ movement and all you’ll get is an explosion”(N.T. Wright)
The references to new cloth on old clothes and new wine in old wineskins are pointers to the ‘newness’ of Jesus’ teaching, as well as to the ‘newness’ of the life which he offers.
Jesus’ makes clear that He is not teaching a reformed Pharisaism or a reformed rabbinicalism but an entirely different way of believing, thinking, and living. He did not come to patch up the old system but to renounce and undermine it.
It isn’t about mixing his new ideas in with the old – it was and still is about moving forward, grasping the transformational truth of what God has done and is doing. Jesus is doing a new thing and this new thing still forms the basis of Christianity today.
Jesus Himself would be the ultimate sacrifice for sin, so the sacrificial system would no longer be necessary. The Pharisees were used to a religious system that was based on animal sacrifice to deal with their sin and the sin of the people. These two ideas are diamentrically opposed!
The patch of unshrunk cloth and the new wine represent the new reality that has come with Jesus—the kingdom of Heaven is here!
The King has arrived and though He will physically leave us for a time, He is still with us by His Spirit and His Kingdom remains, governed by the authority of Jesus(Matt 28:18-20).
As the Kingdom is preached and grows around the world, so His influence increases in the lives of men and women, subduing hearts to the king and creating a people who believe him and serve him.
This is new, it is wonderful and exhilirating and the world will never be the same again! Peter describes this exhuberance as “a joy unspeakable and full of glory”
Indeed, Jesus describes this new reality by use of two commone everyday illustrations which Luke calls a “parable”(Luke 5:35-39):
First = “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, (Grk παλαιῷ, “worn out by use”) the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse” Cloth of that day was primarily wool or linen, and both would shrink when washed. If a patch of new, unshrunk, cloth is sewn on an old garment, then the first time the garment is washed, the new patch shrinks and pulls away from the garment, making a worse tear than before. So an attempt to bind the newness of the gospel to the old religion of Judaism is futile as trying the prevent the new, unshrunk patch once it becomes wet, shrinking and pulling away from the garment, leading to a worse tear than before!
The second is equally disastrous - “neither do men 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.” The wineskins to whch Jesus alludes were usually made from the skin of a goat or lamb and were the primary vessels for the aging, fermenting process. New wine(Grk: νέον, “fresh”), not fully fermented wine and if put into “old wineskins” which have become worn out and brittle due to dryness then they will burst due to the lack of elasticity and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined.
The point here is that Jesus brought something new to the earth that was totally incompatible with the old Pharisaical system of religion. They taught that salvation could be earned through law-works, expressed in religious ritual, whereas Jesus makes it clear throughout His teaching and ministry that salvation, like His healings of the leprous; the crippled and the forgiveness of the sinner is a gift not a reward; of grace not of works! - “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”(John 1:17).
Paul makes this absolutely clear in Galatians 1 and this was the reason for that controversey:
“We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in[d] Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified. But if, in seeking to be justified in Christ, we Jews find ourselves also among the sinners, doesn’t that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not! If I rebuild what I destroyed, then I really would be a lawbreaker. For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”(Gal 2:15-21).
The concept of justification by faith apart from works is diamentrically opposed to justification by works regardless of faith! The former tears away from the latter. Indeed the Greek for tear is σχίσμα, which is also often used metaphorically; combining incompatible religious attitudes is a recipe for schism.
In the same way, Jesus’ new and internal gospel of forgiveness and cleansing cannot be attached to the old and external traditions of self-righteousness and ritual. Just as the only suitable container for new wine is a fresh wineskin, so the only life that can contain true righteousness is the new life given by God when a person repents of his sin and trusts in Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour.
Jesus has brought something new, and the rituals and traditions of official Judaism cannot contain it. The explosive exuberance of the new era must break out of the confines of legalism and asceticism.
The “new wineskins” is hardly detailed in terms of what the new form looks like but it does at least represent a flexible structure that allows for growth and development as God purs in the wine of His Spirit!
Unreformed Judaism has no place alongside the new life of the kingdom of heaven. Little wonder that the Pharisees and the teachers of the law opposed it! They has to in order to survive!
Freedom in Christ has no part in the bondage of legalism. That’s why Paul reproves the Galatians their foolishness saying, “After starting your new lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort?”(Gal 3:3). They did not need to become Jews to become Christians. They did not need to obey th law perfectly by their own self-effort to be acceptable to God.
We are “justified by faith” in Jesus Christ, not by works. As Paul said to them: “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. 21“I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.”(Gal 3:20-21).
So Jesus is doing away with the old and bringing in the new!
Though we should note that He is not referring to setting aside the divine law and ushering in grace because He categorically declared that He did not come to destroy the law but to fulfill it (Matt. 5:17–19). God’s law and His grace have always coexisted and have always been perfectly compatible. The old wineskins were not the teachings of the Old Testament but the rabbinical traditions that had come to overshadow, supersede, and often contradict the divinely revealed truths of the Old Testament.
What this passage shows is that a true believer forsakes legalism and ritualism. He prays but not to be seen by men and earn merit points before God. He fasts in the same way. It is not the activity that changes but the reason for the activity. This is new wine and it is a new cloth. The believe does not try to attach his new life in Christ to his old ritual or religion or try to fit it somehow into his old patterns.
He knows that what is begun in the Spirit cannot be completed in the flesh (Gal. 3:3). The genuine righteousness of a forgiven and cleansed heart cannot be enhanced or supplemented by external religious works.
We are a new creation. (Col. 3:9-10; Eph. 4:22-23) Only our new nature can contain the new growth, good fruit, character, healing, and maturity our Dad has for each of us as His sons and daughters. He loves us where we are, but wants continually to take us and make us who we were created to be; always trying to "produce new wine" in our lives.
A new heart is our new wineskin. A renewed mind and changed actions are our new wine, the BEST tasting wine! The three together signify a changed life.
God has given us “a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh”(Ezek 36:27). This is a heart that now beats for God; lives for God is responsive to God. The “wineskin” capable for the “new wine”
Now, we can take in the words’ gifts and graces of the Spirit to flow in and through us to the blessing of ourselves and others - John 7:37-38
On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.”
As this new wine ferments in us it will change the way we think and act. And we must deliberately choose to drink this win in, each and every day: “...to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.Ephesians 4:22-24
Consider for a moment, where do you feel “stretched” and challenged? Is that because the old nature(the old wineskin as it were) is thin and brittele and reistance to new development?
The new wine of the kingdom of God, requires new wineskins.
Luke finishes the story with Jesus making a comment not found here but worth noting for application: "And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, ‘The old is better.’” [Luke 5: 39]
Some people prefer the old way! It’s hard to imagine that some would prefer to continue to sacrifice goats and bulls when Jesus has paid the price for our sins but the Pharisees liked the old way better and they did not want to let go!
Ever met anybody like that? Maybe you are a bit like thaa? Still living as though the new life of the gospel has never happened? Trying to patch up our old way of living with a bit of Jesus’ message but not willing to surrender ourselves completely to his mercy, grace and wonderful forgiveness?
Jesus did not come to “patch-up” our old lifestyle or fill our old lives with new wine. He came to give us a brand new life and introduce us to a brand new lifestyle so that we do not live in fear or failure; in sin and shame; in defeat to old habits but rather in confidence and victory; salvation and forgiveness; victory and trasnformation by the power of the Holy Spirit.
The message of God’s grace, mercy, justice, and love in Jesus challenges us to new ways of living in each generation.
Just as the disciples of Jesus were celebrating God’s kingdom by eating and drinking, rather than emphasizing self-denial by fasting, we must today find new and appropriate ways to celebrate God’s Kingdom.
By mixing with tax collectors and sinners and healing gentiles, lepers and paralytics as well as casting out demons, Jesus is actively including those who traditionally would not be accepted in respectable Jewish society. Jesus’ compassion introduced a new kingdom approach to all of these people. A willingness to accept and include the outcasts. To heal and to make them new!
How do we find new ways of eating “with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?” How do we bring the new wine into the lives of the diseased; depressed; diasadvantaged; desolate and despondent members of our community?
Jesus’ mission statement is to offer forgiveness and healing and call sinners to repentance and this should be ours as well.
It is a call to a change of heart and and a change of life! Outcasts are welcome! You don;t have to be ‘socially acceptable’ to ‘fit in’ and you won;t be judged as unfit for the Kingdom of Heaven. As it says in Mowana “ What can I say accept you’re welcome!”
A new age has broken and forgiveness is at its heart. Its an age of inclusion, not exclusion or inner cleanliness that comes from a relationship with God, from forgiveness, not from external practices. As NT Wright explains: “This is the new covenant, spoken of by the prophets; forgiveness is here, walking down the street, and when people repent it is theirs. Never mind if it upsets the tidy classifications of the old system. This is a party……and like all Jesus’ parties it is a sign of the new age. It is for those with eyes to see, a miniature messianic banquet”
Let us not be resistant to this new age, this new way of living! Let us be a new wineskin for the new wine. Not patched up, dry and brittle but transformed! Not set in our ways, but willing to be challenged and guided by God to make a real difference in our society.
Let us accept the challenge to ensure we are not resistant to what God is doing in our lives and within our church. Invite Jesus, by His Holy Spirit show us the root of our old habits and old ways and by His grace transform our lives that the wine of His Holy Spirit may flow through and from us!
As Kingdom people, let us live in the power of the resurrection of Jesus. Let us be ready to be stretched and challenged so that the Kingdom of Heaven may come with power in our community as we share the message of the love of Jesus and His readiness and willingness to forgive as they come to him in repentance.
Let us pray for the sick, stretch out a hand to the lonely, take a risk and pray for our friends, invite people to come and hear about Jesus.