A Faith That Prepares New Wineskins

Transcription

1 A Faith That Prepares New Wineskins (Matthew 9:14-17) 3/16/2014 Sacramento Korean Presbyterian Church Rev. Sang-Kun Park The disciples of John the Baptist criticized Jesus for not fasting. Such criticism would have been a significant burden and a blow to Jesus righteousness since one could perceive Jesus to have been attacked by John the Baptist who was highly regarded by the Jews. Jesus certainly did not negate fasting. Rather, the criticism was towards fasting, which was reduced to not much more than a formality. Jesus purported himself to be bridegroom and his disciples to be groomsmen in a wedding to teach the true meaning of fasting. He was providing a strong explanation for His people to live joyful and happy lives. A time for fasting will approach once again for the disciples. All fasting should be performed in remorseful sadness reflecting back on mankind s sins of nailing the Messiah, a Son of God, on the cross. Jesus emphasizes that fasting is far more than being matters of religious practices. Rather, it is a matter of essence in one s attitude towards the truth. Jesus points to a tremendous example. He points out the necessity in preparation of new wineskins for new wine. In ancient times, storage of wine posed many challenges. Wine was often stored in wineskins. Naturally produced gas in newly fermented and pressed wines presented problems. Old wineskins will eventually lose its resilience from heavy usage and often break from storage of new wines as to render it useless. Therefore, it was a common sense to store new wine in sturdy new wineskins. 1

2 New wine symbolizes new teachings from His words. A renewed mindset is necessary to understand and store the heaven s gospel as new wineskins are needed to store new wine. The Pharisees and the Scribes haven t a clue in understanding Jesus teachings because they were not prepared with new wineskins to store new wine, a symbolism of Jesus gospel. Consequently, their old cognizance and sentiment, symbolized by old wineskins, are foolishly committing breakage of their wineskins and spillage of new wine. The need to prepare new wineskins for new wine analogizes the change in our internal personalities. We must discard old wineskins to prepare new wineskins. What sort of old wineskins do we need to discard? Of all things, we must break the framework of the stereotype. When we are obsessed with the stereotype, the Words of God never seem to make sense. Everybody has his or her own window to view the world. That s what we call a stereotype. So, we hear without realizing and we see without understanding. Without realizing and understanding, how can there be a change in personality. Here is an example of how dangerous the stereotype is. The last command that Jesus left to the disciples is this. "You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." (Act 1:8) However, even after witnessing the resurrection of the Lord, and even after receiving the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, the disciples still firmly believed that they had to spread the Gospels only to the Jews. It s a big mistake to think that you can spiritually mature from just seeing and hearing the Words of God. The important thing is that your eyes and ears must be spiritually awakened. I pray that you all become a blessed 2

3 people who can keep the Words of life as your own by breaking away from the stereotype and by well prepared for the new wineskins. Second, abandoning the wrong tradition is like preparing for the new wineskins. The foolishness of human beings often put more emphasis on the human traditions than the Words of God. In Chapter 10 of the Book of Act, it records that it wasn t easy even for God to send Peter to preach to Gentiles. God commanded Peter to go to Cornelius who was Gentile. But Peter had not even thought about preaching to Gentiles, because that was their tradition. It was a lot more difficult to make Peter who was saved but tradition bound believe than to make unsaved Cornelius believe. Unwilling Peter went to Cornelius s house and started preaching but didn t even think about offering a baptism. But amazingly, the work of Holy Spirit came on all who were in the house and they were speaking in tongues. This astonished ignorant Peter. How God can accept Gentiles who are not Jews, as His children! It is really amazing that how Peter had been thoroughly imprisoned by the wrong tradition. Peter, still in astonishment, gave baptism to Gentiles gathered in the house, then returned to Jerusalem. However, all the elders came forward and criticized Peter for dining and socializing in a gentile household. All the elders in Jerusalem were the ones who knew the teaching of Jesus more than any other. But they were too numb to be truly enlightened by Jesus teaching, because their traditions were too deeply embedded in their hearts. Such numbness can be seen nowadays as well. The tradition usually makes our ears duly. The reason why Jesus scolded Pharisees was because they valued their tradition more than the Bible. Preparing a new wineskin means valuing our tradition less than the Bible. What are the traditional 3

4 factors that prevent you from going forth to God? I pray you can throw away such tradition and hold onto the true Gospel, so that you can prepare a new wineskin. Third, preparing a new wineskin means taking a caution when interpreting Bible word for a word. For example, Jesus had healed a paralytic who had been sick for 38 years. Then the Pharisees conspired to kill Jesus for working on Sabbath. What a horrible conspiracy! Interpreting the Bible in a wrong way, and it became a murdering weapon. The Pharisees knew how to interpret the Sabbath literally, but they were missing the true meaning of the Bible. They did not understand that the true concept of the Sabbath encompasses a Sabbath for the poor man who had been paralytic for the last 38 years. Preparing for a new wineskin, therefore, does not mean that we read the Bible and interprets in our own way; it means we let the Bible read us, and lead us so that we can correct our wrong and go forth in the righteous way. Not forgetting this is the faith of preparing a new wineskin, when we are reading the Bible. Fourth, preparing the new wineskin means we throw away our old habit of doing nothing. God did not give the Bible for us to research. He has given it to us so that we can live accordingly. Our spiritual growth can only happen when we act, not just listen. Henry Morton Stanley was an American newspaper reporter who was commissioned to find the Scottish missionary and explorer David Livingstone who was suspected of missing in Africa. After locating Dr. Livingstone, Stanley stayed with him for a while. Stanley wrote that he was moved and became a believer after observing Dr. Livingstone live by the Words of God. Dr. Livingstone s faithful life naturally made a conceited and cynical 4

5 newspaper reporter kneel before the Lord. Isn t this the great power of the faith, which prepares new wineskins? Lastly, developing faith that prepares new wineskins means deserting the way of a child. What is a distinct attribute of a child? A child complains endlessly, and demands endlessly. A child always wants to receive, be understood, be loved, and be accepted. A child has no perception of understanding or loving others, and always blames others. One of the greatest tragedies happening in church is that people fail to grow spiritually and forever stay immature. If its members are immature, the church is immature. Makarios, a monk who had profound influence on St. Augustine, was asked by one of his disciples, What does it mean to die to the world? In answer, Makarios told him to go a cemetery and hurl insults on those lying in their graves. The disciple was puzzled, but he did exactly his teacher told him. When he came back, Makarios sent him again to the cemetery, telling him to pour praises on the dead this time. So, he did as he was told. Makarios asked him, When you hurled insults, did the dead become angry? No, the disciple answered. Then, when you praised them, were they happy? No, he answered again. Dying to the world is like that. Faith preparing new wineskins is like that, too. Are there things that prevent us from growing spiritually because we still remain as old wineskins? What are the things that we need to abandon to prepare ourselves as new wineskins? I hope we can break the frame of stereotypes. And, let s free ourselves from wrong traditions. Let s abandon hypocrisy and begin living by our faith. Let s grow out of our immaturity inside us and become 5

6 spiritually mature to relish true life in this world as heavenly citizens of God s Kingdom prepared as new wineskins. 6