Becoming New WineChikamu

Day 1. Busted Wine Skins

Have you ever read a verse in the Bible and realized it's so profound it just flies right over your head? If that's you, you're not alone.

I'm a regular dude and speak in everyday dude language. I like to surf, skate, snowboard, and you name it– so as you can imagine, my Biblical rhetoric isn't precisely executive pastor biblical scholar status. Sometimes rad things happen when you're reading the Bible, BAM, and God reveals something that usually wouldn't make sense to you. That happened when I was reading Matthew 9:17 a few months ago.

"Nor is new wine put into old wineskins; otherwise, the wineskins burst, and the wine spills, and the wineskins are ruined. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, so both are preserved."

Ok, so what does this mean? What are wineskins anyways?

History lesson time!

In Jesus' time, an animal was sacrificed, skinned, tied up on the ends, and treated to preserve the skin. As a result, the skin (or leather) would have been soft to the touch while it was still new. Instead, over time leather hardens, gets old, and dries out until it eventually breaks.

So here's where my 'aha moment' came in: Jesus is giving us a metaphor for what he was about to do. The new wine represented a new heart or new soul. The wineskins represented our bodies or lifestyle. Better said, you can't put a new heart and soul into an old life. Or maybe a car reference is more suitable for someone!! You don't put a new engine in an old beat-up car; you want new inside AND new on the outside.

This begs the question: what is an "old body" or old wineskins? I got news for you! It's your habits, environment, friends, or even your living situation. Several old and broken things could need to be changed so that you can make room and hold space for a new heart and soul.

But Jesus doesn't just stop there with the wine analogy. When wine is made, some chemical reactions occur, and the alcohol ferments. This creates gasses. I'm sure you have had old food in the fridge, and you open it up, and gasses come out. This is very similar to what we are talking about here.

So now imagine you take this old dried-up skin leather and put new wine in it to ferment, gasses are created, and then boom! Wine all over the place! NOT awesome!

As Christians, we often want to be new; we WANT a new life. We see other Christians living a life that looks intriguing, significant, radical, and all the stuff. We see thriving relationships, businesses doing great, and lives well lived. And sometimes, that feels out of reach. I used to feel that same way. I wanted to be a strong Christian man for my family. I wanted to tell people about Jesus. I wanted to know about this life that I was missing out on. But I was a broken vessel. I partied all the time. I judged people. I was anxious about everything. I was scared of "being new" because much of my identity sat in who I thought I was and who society told me I was. So how in the world was I going to become new? How was God going to change me? How might He change you?

When you read the verse about new wine, how does it speak to you? If God gave you a renewed heart and soul today, would you put it in your current body or circumstances? Does something need to change? If so, what is it? Sit and pray about this and write it down.