Old Wine, New Wineskins

It was 2010 and Upstate South Carolina was expecting snow. My wife and I were visiting for the holidays and were excitedly anticipating a white Christmas. It had been forty-seven years since snow had graced the Upstate on Christmas Day.

Most of Christmas day was rainy. Around mid afternoon sleet and a wet mix of snow began falling. By 9 p.m. it was entirely snow. Since accumulation occurred before midnight, Christmas day was registered as a white Christmas.

Snow continued throughout the night and into the next day which happened to be Sunday. Churches across the region cancelled services. This was disappointing since it was the perfect day to celebrate the season's old message in a new setting. Though alive in 1963, I had never witnessed a white Christmas I remembered.

Jesus said; No one puts new wine into old wineskins (Mark 2:22 NLT). It was unwise. As new wine fermented, it stretched the goatskin bags. Old skins had previously been stretched. Putting new wine into them would cause them to burst, losing the skin and wine. It was a veiled rebuke of the religious leader's practices. They had become religiously rigid like old wineskins. Jesus' message did not accommodate their philosophy of hypocritical rules.

But it is possible to put old fermented wine into new skins. This is what Christmas is all about. The message of Christmas is not new; it just came in novel form. Since the beginning of time, God had presented his message of love to humanity. Jesus taking on human flesh and dying on a cross was old wine in new wineskins. Christmas-along with Good Friday and Easter, are graphic displays of how far God will stretch to save humanity.

Prayer: Father, help us stop among the hustle and bustle of the season and drink of Your old wine.

Martin Wiles
Hodges, South Carolina, USA

Old Wine, New Wineskins

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