The Pastor’s Page
February News Letter
“No one puts new wine into old wineskins; if he does, the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed.”
—Jesus, Luke 5:37
When ancient people squeezed grapes and put the juice into skins to ferment, they learned that you could not use old wineskins. This was an instance where recycling was not good. Only new skins could withstand the pressure of the fermenting grapes. Jesus uses this fact to make a valuable point about our life of faith. In no way was he finding fault with old wine (which improves with age), he was simply saying that there are times when we need to treat the new in fresh, unrestricting ways. What might this mean for our life of faith as we start a new year?
As we grow up and learn about our faith, we are instructed about how God and religion can be helpful in our daily lives. We learn to pray and worship. We gain insight into the nature of how God works among us and in the world. But as we become adults things happen that challenge our thinking. Bad things happen to good people, as they say. Well laid out plans do not work as we had hoped. Some prayers do not seem to be answered, even in times of greatest need. What has happened? Where is God?
The old wine of childish understanding of faith is good. It helps us to see the world and life as a whole as good. Adults, though, need “new wine”—new and deeper understandings of God and faith. As St. Paul said, “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly . . .” (1 Corinthians 13:11-12).
We realize as we grow in our faith that our childish understandings of God were only superficial. God is not Santa Claus. Through trials and tribulations we learn that God does not protect us from every possible harm. But what we also learn as we grow and mature in the life of faith is that God is always walking with us as we travel life’s sometimes rocky journey. God is always guiding us on the sometimes dark and treacherous paths of life and helps us to get up again when we fall.
In the church’s calendar, we have just ended the season of Christmas and begun the season of Epiphany, and we anticipate the coming of the season of Lent. Epiphany serves as a bridge between Christmas and Good Friday, between Jesus’ birth and his death. As we put the fermenting wine of our faith into new wineskins at the beginning of a new year, we are still in the midst of the 12 days of Christmas. The celebration of Christmas reminds us how God comes to us in new and unexpected ways. God, who may have seemed to be growing more distant, comes near to us in the unexpected form of a vulnerable baby—Emmanuel—“God with us.” Jesus was born into this world to live and struggle and suffer with us, and ultimately to bring us redemption and salvation through his suffering and death on the cross. Christmas points us directly to Good Friday and Easter.
Here is new wine indeed, offering us a richer understanding of the truth that God is love. The baby born in Bethlehem is vulnerable, just as we are vulnerable, but God is acting in the world through that baby. God is indeed with us. In this new year, let us be open to new insights and new understandings of how our loving, compassionate God lives and works among us. Our God is the God of love and compassion who is always with us, especially in the darkest times to bring us new wine in the form of new hope and new life. Thanks be to God!
—Jesus, Luke 5:37
When ancient people squeezed grapes and put the juice into skins to ferment, they learned that you could not use old wineskins. This was an instance where recycling was not good. Only new skins could withstand the pressure of the fermenting grapes. Jesus uses this fact to make a valuable point about our life of faith. In no way was he finding fault with old wine (which improves with age), he was simply saying that there are times when we need to treat the new in fresh, unrestricting ways. What might this mean for our life of faith as we start a new year?
As we grow up and learn about our faith, we are instructed about how God and religion can be helpful in our daily lives. We learn to pray and worship. We gain insight into the nature of how God works among us and in the world. But as we become adults things happen that challenge our thinking. Bad things happen to good people, as they say. Well laid out plans do not work as we had hoped. Some prayers do not seem to be answered, even in times of greatest need. What has happened? Where is God?
The old wine of childish understanding of faith is good. It helps us to see the world and life as a whole as good. Adults, though, need “new wine”—new and deeper understandings of God and faith. As St. Paul said, “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly . . .” (1 Corinthians 13:11-12).
We realize as we grow in our faith that our childish understandings of God were only superficial. God is not Santa Claus. Through trials and tribulations we learn that God does not protect us from every possible harm. But what we also learn as we grow and mature in the life of faith is that God is always walking with us as we travel life’s sometimes rocky journey. God is always guiding us on the sometimes dark and treacherous paths of life and helps us to get up again when we fall.
In the church’s calendar, we have just ended the season of Christmas and begun the season of Epiphany, and we anticipate the coming of the season of Lent. Epiphany serves as a bridge between Christmas and Good Friday, between Jesus’ birth and his death. As we put the fermenting wine of our faith into new wineskins at the beginning of a new year, we are still in the midst of the 12 days of Christmas. The celebration of Christmas reminds us how God comes to us in new and unexpected ways. God, who may have seemed to be growing more distant, comes near to us in the unexpected form of a vulnerable baby—Emmanuel—“God with us.” Jesus was born into this world to live and struggle and suffer with us, and ultimately to bring us redemption and salvation through his suffering and death on the cross. Christmas points us directly to Good Friday and Easter.
Here is new wine indeed, offering us a richer understanding of the truth that God is love. The baby born in Bethlehem is vulnerable, just as we are vulnerable, but God is acting in the world through that baby. God is indeed with us. In this new year, let us be open to new insights and new understandings of how our loving, compassionate God lives and works among us. Our God is the God of love and compassion who is always with us, especially in the darkest times to bring us new wine in the form of new hope and new life. Thanks be to God!
