On This Day: New Wineskins for Old Sinners

   And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
   No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins—and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins. But new wine is for fresh wineskins.” (Mark 2:16-22)

 

   When I was a church-going child, and then a young Christian in my teens, and even a new pastor in my twenties, I had no idea how much of what was “the way we do it here” was not even found in the Bible. It was “that old-time religion” far more than “the new covenant in my blood” that Jesus provided.

   Even just yesterday I was watching a video (while editing photos for the daycare) where the presenter showed things we take for granted as central to church gatherings that are never even mentioned in the New Testament as characteristics of church meetings.

   Part of my journey into learning what it means to live in “new covenant” relationship with God in “the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code” (Romans 7:6) has included finding myself pastoring a home church over twenty-one years ago. In our early years, we had to grapple with what was actually taught in the New Testament about being part of the church Jesus is building. We weren’t on a quest to create some new movement, but to find the realities Jesus constantly spoke about regarding “the kingdom of God” or “the kingdom of heaven”.

   There is much to say about this! However, the personal aspect of meditating on this passage of Scripture this morning is to share how good it is (sometimes in a bittersweet kind of way) to narrow the spotlight onto what the Spirit is teaching us from the word and see what props we have put on the stage that don’t belong there at all. Then we can search the Scriptures to ascertain what things should be in our church’s walk with God that we have left out simply because the stage was already so full of our own good ideas!

   And one of the things many churches seem to neglect is that the new covenant requires TWO deaths, not just one. We needed Jesus’ death to create the new covenant in his blood, but we also need our death to enter that new covenant. As Peter said, Jesus died “that we might die to sin and live to righteousness” (I Peter 2:24).

   In explaining baptism, Paul wrote, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:3-4).

   And then Paul gave his own personal example, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).

   What amazes me is that sinners were flocking to Jesus in his proclamation of “the good news of the kingdom” even before they understood anything of his crucifixion. Now we know that Jesus’ death for sinners requires sinners to die to sin and live in the righteousness of faith.

   Which direction are you being pulled right now, to cling to sin and religion, or to walk with Jesus in newness of life that requires you to deny yourself, take up your cross daily, and follow the Savior on the narrow way to paradise?

 

© 2024 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)