New Wine

As of 12:00am on Tuesday morning, a new leaf was turned over around the world... New Year's day was ushered in from the Christmas Islands to Honolulu, from Lubbock to Moscow, Khoa Koa Kao to Vienna. Around the globe, people adopted new resolutions and made new beginnings, some for the tenth time in as many years. It seems that even the World can get into the idea of new birth when it comes to New Year's, almost acting as though the previous year has no further consequences of anything else to affect us.

For the first time in quite a while, I myself made some resolutions, although I choose to call them "New Year's Resolute Goals." I say this because it's so easy to get into the mindset that resolutions are made to be broken, and these are things that I want to carry throughout the whole year. In fact, I made lists and printed them out so that I can have them in my office, on my bathroom mirror at home, and even in my wallet... constant reminders of those things that I hope to achieve and simply do better in 2008.

With all of the "new beginnings" happening around, I thought about the spiritual aspects of new beginnings. How often do we need to repent and, essentially, have yet another "new beginning" when it comes to our personal walk with Christ? I'm not saying that we "get saved again," but I am saying that each time we repent from where we're stepping, it is a sort of new beginning; a coming back to Christ. We should all know that the ultimate new beginning comes when a person truly accepts Jesus Christ as their Saviour. But, there are also a plethora of new beginnings  that we all make, as humans, from a new diet to making new friends to starting a new school or college, moving, getting a new job, getting married, having a baby, etc. but they simply don't carry the same weight as when a person becomes a Christian.

When it comes to new beginnings, Jesus used a great analogy in the book of Matthew. In chapther 9, verse 17, Jesus uses the analogy of placing old wine in new wineskins. The entire passage (v.14-17) is talking about fasting and why Jesus' disciples weren't fasting like the Pharisees and the disciples of John the Baptist, but it is definitely talking about new beginnings. But how relevant this particular verse is to this time of the year for us! As we think about what, exactly, an old wineskin might look like, and what it might be filled with, we get a good picture of what our former lives, before we came to know Christ as Saviour and Lord, must look like. The bags are darkened with oils and sugars from what they held. The wine, inside, has long gone past its "good year" status and has become a nasty smelling and tasting vinegar. No one would like a sip of the vileness inside of the wineskin, yet it sits there anyway, continuing to fill the skin with its putrid smells. There is no life in the wineskin. Our lives, without Christ, are filled with the nastiness and toxic tastes, smells, and looks of sin. There is no life-giving liquid within us, without Christ, and no one truly wants to take a draught of what we've got on the inside, because it's nothing but death.

On the other hand, we see the new wineskin. It is fresh and filled with new wine; wine that gives life and sustenance to a person. In the same way, we are crafted anew when we come to know Christ as Lord and Saviour, becoming that new wineskin that is ripe to accept the sweet drops of new wine, which is the Holy Spirit. Ours has become a skin that the world over wants to take long drinks from to be filled by that which gives life. The wine, the Spirit, that we've been filled with, is the only thing that can give life to a world that is in the clutches of death. This gives new meaning to the Eucharist / communion / Lord's Supper, as we see that being wineskins, and wine symbolizing blood, we essentially take into our own bodies Christ's blood, becoming very one with Him. It is a very beautiful thing to see what God begins for us anew, as we walk through life with Him!

When it comes to our lives, as Believers, there are certainly many instances where we're going to go through changes and realize that the point we're at is actually a new beginning that is about to transpire. Sometimes, when we are on these thresholds, it can be extremely scary, while at other times, it is one of the most exhilarating and exciting things we could ever endeavor. Often times, it is a strange combination of both!

The thing about new beginnings, though, is that God is always in control of them. He is the one who directs them and sees them through; they are never done in or of our own prideful power.

With the new year being here, there are many of us who are looking for a new beginning, whether that's in school, in some friendship or relationship, or even with God. Take the time to think about new beginnings, and the point, in your life, where you might need one (or several!). You, a Believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, are a wineskin that God has crafted to hold the best wine this world has ever seen. Don't continue to settle for being some grungy old sack of vinegar hanging in the back. Be the cask that is full of the sweetness of the Lord, whose fragrance fills up the room and whose wonderful taste affects all who come in contact with you! As one of my favorite bands sings, "God is the wine, I am the wineglass." We are vessels meant to be broken for other people.