A PIECE OF NEW CLOTH … NEW WINE IN OLD BOTTLES

The illustrations used by the Lord in these verses are contrasts between old and new. There is the old garment and the new piece of cloth used to repair a tear. Then, there is the old wine skins used to store new wine. Both are used to indicate that the old traditions and practices of Judaism cannot be used to accom­modate that which is new - the teaching of the Lord.

The old garment would have been washed many times. As such, it would have shrunk to its minimum size. Any new cloth which had not been washed would be liable to shrink. Putting that new cloth into the old garment would only make the dam­age it was meant to repair worse. Rather than providing a repair, the shrinkage of the new cloth would leave the original tear in a poorer state.

The fermentation process that would take place in respect of new wine would be something that required new wine skins. A new skin had the required flexibility to cope with the process and that which it creates. The ‘bottle’ would not burst. However, in respect to an old casing, the brittleness of the receptacle would result in the wine bursting the skin and being lost.

Human nature is resistant to change, especially when such change is radical. The older we get the more rigid and regi­mented we can become. How easy it would be to resist change for no other reason than our own personality and prejudice. If that which is new has the intention to ‘fill up’ and to preserve, as in the metaphors used, then it may be something that can be embraced for the blessing of the Lord’s people.

Similarly, we have criteria by which we make judgements about people and the sincerity of their profession. The lifestyle of the Lord’s disciples did not conform to that which was expected, either by the disciples of John the Baptist or the Phari­sees. The austerity of their lives suggested a very dour and mournful religion. Mourning befits those from whom the Lord has been forcibly taken, for this is the implication of the Lord’s words; but knowing the presence of the Lord in the midst should make us rejoice and be glad.