New wine, new wineskins!
THE PHARISEES were good people in preserving the letter of the law, but they failed to realise that when one deals with the revelation of God, one comes face to face with a divine reality that calls for elasticity in terms of understanding how God mixes with human beings. The Pharisees stood rigidly in their relationship with the law; they are like old wineskins which lack elasticity; they are brittle and will burst with the new wine that’s bubbling and fermenting continuously until it reaches maturity.
So it is with us Christians who, no matter how good we are, must be on our Ps and Qs to see God operating in our lives in so many different events. It is Jesus who brings the revelation of God’s new wine. In fact, He IS the new wine! He says, “I am the vine, you are the branches. As long as you remain in me, and I in you, you bear much fruit; but apart from me you can do nothing” [John 15:5]. The sap in the vine nourishes the branches which, in turn, bring forth grapes to produce the wine.
STANDING FOR JUSTICE
All this is analogous to the life of us Christians; we are called not to stand still in our intimacy with the Lord Jesus, who is forever revealing God’s plan to bring us into the divine sphere of His love. Jesus ushers in the Kingdom of justice, truth, mercy and love. He challenges us to expand our capacity to become holy by exchanging our unjust ways of living for justice; our false and superficial manner of living for the truth of our being (divine potency); our lack of compassion for mercy; and our indifference in relationships (with God and neighbour) with love
reflecting the very image of God. This continuous conversion is only possible if we are elastic enough to live according to the prompting of God’s Spirit dwelling within us to “bring all truths to mind” (John 14:26). Only then do we become ‘new wineskins’ capable of embracing a loving, compassionate Jesus, the ‘New Wine’. Only then do we live the new life that Jesus shares with us. It is never late for a new beginning, since “now is the acceptable time; ... now is the day of salvation!” (2 Corinthians 6.2).