Luke 5:34-39

³⁴ And He said to them, “Can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them? ³⁵ But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them; then they will fast in those days.”

³⁶ Then He spoke a parable to them: “No one puts a piece from a new garment on an old one; otherwise the new makes a tear, and also the piece that was taken out of the new does not match the old. ³⁷ And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine will burst the wineskins and be spilled, and the wineskins will be ruined. ³⁸ But new wine must be put into new wineskins, and both are preserved. ³⁹ And no one, having drunk old wine, immediately desires new; for he says, ‘The old is better.’ ”

Last time I wrote about making ourselves small in G-d’s eyes, looking, so to speak, through the eyes of grasshoppers; this brings us to the second thing we do after we’ve made ourselves small: we turn back.

Israel, on the brink of taking the land promised them, saw the giants and quailed, though the Father had already proven His faithfulness. It rendered void their plea for deliverance from Egypt, and as much as it angered Moses, (Psalm 106:33)  it really angered G-d.

David recounts their faithlessness in Psalms 78 and 106.

G-d already told them He was giving them the land, and their victory was assured. What should have been a time of rejoicing turned into decades of purging, for G-d wouldn’t allow that generation He delivered from slavery to occupy a new land in faithlessness.

 

Consider this from Luke 9:61-62

⁶¹ And another also said, “Lord, I will follow You, but let me first go bid them farewell who are at my house.”

⁶² But Jesus said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”

So, back to the wineskins. Why is the old wine better?

The appeal of the old wine is the process is behind us, and success, in whatever degree, is evident in front of us. The thought of doing it again with the new grapes in the hot Israeli sun was not appealing: gathering, hauling, storing, making the wine, then pouring it into the wineskin itself so it doesn’t spill.

But it had to be done.

Yet consider again what Jesus says at the end:  they don’t immediately desire the new. We don’t like ‘suddenly’ unless its favorable. A sudden increase in pay, or the gifting of a need unexpectedly met.

But Job and his family also had a ‘suddenly’ experience, didn’t they? What now?

It comes down to a matter of trust: Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him. (Job 13:15)

Our Lord tells us in Matthew 6:31-34

³¹ “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³² For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.³³ But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. ³⁴ Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

So if He is: faithful to keep His promises, the author and finisher of our faith, our living Redeemer, and we trust and hope in Him to deliver us from the grave, then how are we walking that out in our lives?

Do we really trust this? Did G-d really say…? The serpents never stop crawling; don’t isolate yourself in spiritual gardens of solitude.

We hold His Word in our hands, and He tells us His Word is higher than His Name, and there is nothing greater than that.  Let us be assured by the words of the Apostle who experienced the greatest highs and lows of all G-d had to offer:

¹³ Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do,  forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, ¹⁴ I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

¹⁵ Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you.

Therefore I pray:

Lord Jesus,

You have said to us that You are united to the Father in will, deed, and intentions toward us, and the Father Himself tells us His plan is to give us a hope and a future.

Yet we are to suffer with You in order to share the glory of Heaven with You, and forsake our very lives and loved ones when You call us to do the work of the kingdom. It is a life of obedience under a light yoke with a heavy price.

Our grasshopper eyes and nostalgic hearts look back, and Your light is calling to us from a strange place we’ve never seen and don’t understand. The way is fraught with perils and trials, and we read over and over again these assurances:

Don’t be afraid. Trust and believe. I am with You always. I will deliver you. I forgive you. No one can snatch you out of my hands. I call you friends. I go to prepare a place for you. If it were not so, I would have told you. Do not worry. Do not doubt. Believe in G-d, believe also in Me. Assuredly, I say to you…

We know that one day we shall want the new wine, and it will be better than that which You prepared at the wedding feast. Strengthen us, Lord, to keep our eyes focused on You, and not to be like Israel, provoking You to wrath, but let us answer the call as did Your disciple Matthew, with no hesitation, and no regrets.

Luke 5:27-28

²⁷ After these things He went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, “Follow Me.” ²⁸ So he left all, rose up, and followed Him.

I ask it in Your Name.

May it be done to us as You have said.

Amen.