New Wine in Old Whineskins
Bursting the Bubble of Fellow Complainers
Jesus said that you can’t put new wine in old wineskins otherwise they’d burst. Modern translation: they can’t hold all the awesomeness. The old wineskins would be dried out from the previous batch of wine’s alcohol. The new wine, which would have been recently fermented and even continuing to ferment in some cases, would have an expanded quality to it and so the skin would burst, causing you to lose both the skin and the wine. Ever put a Coke bottle in the freezer as a kid and then try to let it thaw out? Beer bottle as an adult? Anything? If so, you may have a bit of a bit of experience in what’s going on here. Either way, you hopefully get the picture.
With that in mind I’d love to admonish my fellow Christians for a moment concerning wine and whining. The Bible talks about both extensively, actually. It’s really quite breathtaking to take a survey of Scripture’s emphasis on God’s people being precisely the kind of people who are not found to be whining, grumbling, or complaining.
Yet far too often they are.
Let me rephrase for the sake of clarity: far too often we are. You. Me. Not just others. Not simply Israel in the wilderness. You and me in the coziness of modern day suburbia.
Our culture’s idea of American exceptionalism and/or individualistic primacy has completely messed up the way we view life. Instead of knowing that we are part of a grandly orchestrated story that has a set and hopeful end, we drudge on through life focusing on why things are happening to us the way they are. Now, before anyone gets up in arms too quickly, this isn’t to say we can’t ever think about ourselves or have issues with how things are going. Far from it. “Love your neighbor as yourself” comes to mind, firstly, followed quickly by the assumptions built into the Scriptural command to ”weep with those who weep.” My brothers, God is not mocked, and neither does he mock us by afflicting us and then punishing us because we didn’t hold back our tears.So make no mistake, Scripture allows for sorrow and real human experience amidst a very painful world. But here’s the catch: being a whiney, snotty nosed little brat isn’t part of that allowance.
[14]Do everything without complaining or arguing, [15] so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe [16] as you hold out the word of life—in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor for nothing.
Philippians 2.14-16
Do everything without complaining or arguing. No grumbling here, man. Not fighting about what a better course of action would be or how things should have gone in some other direction. Shut it.
Why? “So that you may become blameless and pure.” This whole shut-your-pie-hole policy regarding complaints that Father God has for his kiddos isn’t just “because I said so” like many of us heard far too often from our own parents. It’s so that. It has an aim. That aim is your blamelessness. Your purity. Your proof of purchase as far as this whole adoption thing is concerned, “children of God.”
Paul has the audacity to say that this is the means by which we will stand out, faultlessly, amidst a depraved backdrop. It’s not the sexual immorality (that helps), the lack of murder (probably should avoid that one, too), or making sure to not defraud the government come tax season (no comment). It’s not being a bunch of two year olds throwing tantrums when things don’t go our way. That’s how God shows the world who his kids are. And, if we act like that, when we act like that, we don’t just stand out. No, we ”shine like stars.” What the what??
The good news is that Paul isn’t trippin’. He’s not cray. He’s inspired while writing this. And he’s right. Complaining is nothing more than a deficiency in the faith arena. You don’t trust God’s wise provision and so countering opinions just bubble on out. Paul writes elsewhere that anything that doesn’t proceed from faith is sin (Rom 14). So if faith is bolstered such that complaints simply don’t have any oxygen (doubt) to survive off of then it stands to reason that there is very little that will be flowing out of your life that isn’t connected to this rock solid faith. In other words, you’ve removed the soil for sin.
Jesus’ teaching on wine and wineskins was concerning God’s desire to do a new thing amongst his people. A new kingdom had arrived. A new way of being human was being ushered in by this second Adam. The old systems and ways of doing things—those once useful but no longer very helpful wineskins—needed to be cast aside because the new wine was going to be so much better. And it would be much more potent (don’t think that Jesus’ miracle of turning water into wine wasn’t meaningful beyond being a great party trick).
The kingdom has come, but only in part. There is more work yet to be done. A final harvest is coming. A final day of the Lord will come finally and fully. In other words, there is still some brand new, super potent wine that God is wanting to share with the wedding guests, but he simply won’t put it in old whineskins like you and me cause we can’t handle it, we’ll burst and be ruined. What do you say to trading the old whine for the new?
