New Wine for a New Time
New Wine for a New Time
Reflecting on the Second Sunday after the Epiphany: Three Days After Sunday (Year C)
Scripture
Psalter: Psalm 145
Old Testament: Song of Solomon 4:9—5:1
Gospel: Luke 5:33-39
___
Prayer
Holy God, you gather the whole universe into your radiant presence and continually reveal your Son as our Savior. Bring healing to all wounds, make whole all that is broken, speak truth to all illusion, and shed light in every darkness, that all creation will see your glory and know your Christ. Amen.
___
Reflection
Because we’re unfamiliar with ancient practices, sometimes it’s difficult for modern readers to understand Jesus’s parables. In Jesus's day, people used animal skins—like goatskin—for storing liquids. Fermented drinks like wine expanded, and since an old wineskin would already be stretched to its limit, the new wine would tear the seams.
This is why new wine needed to be preserved in new wineskins. As the wine expanded, the new skins would stretch to accommodate it.
Jesus was making a very specific point. He was here to do something completely new. If John (or anyone else) tried to make sense of it through a lens of old expectations and regulations, they'd miss the amazing thing that was happening. Through Jesus, God was redeeming the world to Himself. And if people expected this to look familiar to what God had done before, they wouldn’t understand.
Modern Christians have the benefit of hindsight. We get to see the whole picture in a way that makes sense. Those who chose to follow Jesus in the first century struggled with a lot of confusion. Was this Messiah going to conquer their enemies? Why did Jesus behave so differently than other rabbis? Why was the religious establishment so angry with Him? Questions like these would have created a lot of unrest and anxiety in His Jewish audience.
Jesus encouraged contemporaries to quit focusing on how His behavior fit in the current religious climate. Instead, He told them to focus on the fruit of His ministry.
Looking at fruit helps us to recognize followers of Jesus, even when people come from unfamiliar theological or cultural backgrounds. Otherwise, like the people in Jesus’s day, we’re tempted to use the wrong standards for discerning what Jesus is doing in the world around us.
___
You can learn more about The Jesus Film Project here.