New Wine

Jesus has a peculiar encounter with the infamous Pharisees in Mark’s Gospel, where we see these teachers of the law quizzing Jesus about why His followers weren’t fasting – Mark 2:18-22:

¹⁸ Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. Some people came and asked Jesus, “How is it that John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting, but yours are not?”

¹⁹ Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? They cannot, so long as they have him with them. ²⁰ But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast.

²¹ “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. ²² And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, he pours new wine into new wineskins.”

This passage may seem puzzling. That may lead to us scratching our heads. Yet, this may be one of Jesus’ richest theological lessons. He says, if you have an old piece of clothing – one that’s been stretched and worn by being washed over and over again – and then you sew on a patch that’s brand new, the new patch will stretch, and when it does, it will pull the old piece of clothing apart and destroy it.

These days, many people wouldn’t understand this. When our clothes tear or get a hole in them, we just throw them away and buy something new. But there was actually a time when you repaired clothes when they tore. Waste not, want not.

Jesus also talks about not putting new wine in old wineskins. You put new wine in new wineskins. We may not relate to this, as we usually use barrels to store and age wine. Back then, they used bags made out of animal skins.

The trick was, the animal skins were soft and pliable when they were brand new. As new wine fermented and aged, the new wineskins were flexible enough to stretch during the fermentation process. Old wineskins had already been stretched. In that stretching, they became weak and brittle. Old wine in an old wineskin worked just fine – the two had expanded and stretched as far as they would go. New wine, though, would destroy an old wineskin because the expansive gases from fermentation would rip the brittle wineskins apart.

Why did Jesus use these examples? Because these examples are actually His teaching. The Law that the Pharisees held so dear was what they had counted on to save them. To point them in the right direction until God, Himself, came to restore people and creation to Himself. Only now, God had come – His name is Jesus Christ. He came to do what they had always been hoping that He would do. He came to reveal His Program. His new deal.

Jesus came to reveal His program of redemption and salvation. A new deal now made available to all.

Jesus came to roll out His new deal. His program. He didn’t come to abolish the Law. In Matthew 5:17, He said:

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them.”

But He didn’t come to polish the Law, either. He came with something totally new. That’s why He says, I’m not bringing my new deal to be a patch on your old tattered robe. Nor did I come with an awesome new wine to put in your old worn wine bags, only to watch the combination ruin them both. And that leads to the theological headline of the New Testament:

To accept the Jesus way, you have to let go of the old way.

If we do a side by side comparison between the Traditional Approach of the Pharisees and the new Jesus Program, we see a contrast between who, what, how, and why:

	Traditional Approach	The Jesus Program
Who	Jews/Keeper of the Law “Good Christian Folk”	Sinners, tax collectors Rough crowd, Outcasts, the Broken
What	Be worthy before God	Be made worthy by God
How	Keep the Law “Follow the rules”	Rely on God’s grace Not “striving,” but relying
Why	Gather the good ones Spotlight on human holiness	Find and save the lost Spotlight on divine mercy

Just as with the new patch on the old shirt, or the new wine in the old bags, the Jesus Program is not compatible with the Traditional Approach.

In the old way of thinking: You were good before you were accepted. In the new: You are accepted before you are good.

In the old way: You were worthy to be with God. In the new way: Being with God makes you worthy.

In the old way: You earn your salvation by following the rules. In the new way: You stop striving to earn God’s acceptance and instead rely on Him and trust Him. You obey not because you have to but because you love Him.

In the old way: The Christian life is about preserving ourselves. In the new: It’s about connecting people to Jesus. To God.

In the old way: The focus is on us. In the new: The focus is on Jesus.

That’s why it is said that the church ought not to be a museum for saints, but rather a hospital for sinners. Jesus says this clearly in Mark 2:17:

“It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”