Pros
update
23 March 07
A New Way of Playing
33They said to him, "John's disciples often fast and pray, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours go on eating and drinking."
34Jesus answered, "Can you make the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? 35But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; in those days they will fast."
36He told them this parable: "No one tears a patch from a new garment and sews it on an old one. If he does, he will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. 37And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. 38No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. 39And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, 'The old is better.' "
This week we return from our detour in Luke to continue looking at chapter 5.
It’s getting to the time of the season when there’s a fair bit hiring and firing of football management going on. But it’s not just the managers that this affects; often the arrival of a new manager means a new club structure and a whole new way of playing.
In this passage Jesus uses the parable of wineskins to tell the Jewish religious leaders that because of him there’s now a new way of relating to God.
Longing for the manager to come
For about 600 years the Jews had been eagerly awaiting ‘the Messiah’; God’s great leader who would perfectly rule the Jewish nation and right all wrongs. John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees, like those before them, fasted and prayed (verse 33) because they longed for the Messiah to come. And who wouldn’t? Just as any team thrives under good management and plays well under a good coach, so the Old Testament (the first half of the Bible) tells us that under the perfect management of God’s King the whole world will flourish.
All Change
But the tragedy is that like so many today, the Pharisees didn’t recognise that Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus says in verse 34 that they’re like guests at a wedding acting as if the bridegroom hadn’t turned up, when in fact the wedding feast was in full-swing because he’d arrived hours ago. That’s why Jesus tells them the parable of the wineskins to explain that with him on the scene, a new and perfect manager, the whole way of relating to God has changed. Gone are the old ways of waiting for the Messiah, instead now there’s joy and celebration because he’s come!
Playing in a new way
There’s a real warning in the parable that the old models of religious behaviour (the old wineskins) won’t be able to cope with Jesus on the scene – they’ll burst. Instead the new wine of a relationship with Jesus must be exercised in the new wineskins of how he tells us to relate to him.
Two distinctive features that Luke outlines about this ‘new way’ are that a relationship with Jesus is full of joy and celebration – he’s the perfect King who will run the world perfectly; and a relationship with Jesus is available for anyone – he came to seek and save the lost. So this week may the wine of joy of your relationship with Jesus, overflow into the lives of those you play with. That’s the way that Jesus tells his players to play.
Pete
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