Taste and See

³⁷ And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. ³⁸ But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. ³⁹ And no one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good’” (Luke 5:37-39, ESV). 

Just before this Jesus healed the paralyzed man and called Levi, the tax collector, to come and follow him.  Leaving everything behind he went home and had a feast for Jesus.  Also the Pharisees and scribes were here with their typical response of grumbling about the company Jesus keeps.  When they ask Jesus why he eats and drinks with the tax collectors and sinners, he responds with the answer, “Those who are well have no need of physician but those who are sick.  I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” 

It’s interesting how they repeatedly refuse to understand their own need to repent.  And so they get right off the subject and ask Jesus a question about why his disciples aren’t fasting.  And as Jesus does often again he responds with a parable, this one about wine skins.  For most of us today, the process of making wine is not a common idea we would know much about, however for them it would have been. 

Making wine was a process.  The juice from the grapes would be mixed with yeast and sugar then placed in a new wine skin for the fermentation process.  During the fermentation the mixture would rest at just the right temperature for a certain amount of time until it turned into wine.  And since yeast has a way of expanding, if the wine was placed into an old wine skin that was already stretched out, the new wine would burst the skin at some point during the fermentation period. 

In the beginning of the school year the kids got new sneakers.  For my daughter it’s the same type of sneaker just new.  Because of course you can’t start a new school with last years sneakers, right?  Anyway, yesterday after school she put on her old sneakers.  It was followed with a wow as she was telling me how her new sneakers fit better and tighter and the old ones were more stretched out and loose.  I guess after a year including Cross Country, track, and other daily use it was time for a new pair.  Funny how she didn’t realize they were stretched out until she wore the new ones. 

And that is exactly what Jesus was getting at with the Pharisees.  They were stuck in old, the old rules, traditions and old covenant from God.  But Jesus came bringing a new covenant.    

³¹ “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, ³² not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. ³³ For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people (Jeremiah 31:31-33, ESV). 

The Pharisees had neglected to receive the new covenant, rejected Jesus’ coming, and refused to repent.  Without Jesus and the promise of the indwelling Holy Spirit there was nothing new inside them.  They were still drinking the old wine and thinking it was good. 

⁸ Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!  Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!  (Psalm 34:8, ESV) 

They hadn’t tasted yet and unfortunately for them they didn’t know any better, because if they had the old would no longer be good and the new would be ready to burst out. And that is what Jesus does.  He has come to make things new.  When he comes and dwells inside our hearts eventually what he has made new will burst out. 

Lord, your word says taste and see you are good.  Some of us are at different stages today.  I pray for those who may not have yet tasted that you would come in and begin that work in their lives and they would see you are good.  And for some we may be in the fermenting stage.  Fermenting takes time and temperature to bring change.  It may be a stage of trials and tribulations, of continuous cycles of sin patterns, or doubts about our faith and identity.  Give us the strength as you grow and shape us during this time.  Perhaps some of us are ready to break through after the season of fermenting and are now ready to burst out of the old, would you break any old skins that has contained them, so that they would not be held back anymore.  And for some we have some break through and are now spilling into the lives of others around us because of what you have already done in us.  No matter where we are, would you come now Lord, come and do your work in each of us.  In Jesus Name I pray, Amen.