Gospel of Mark, chapter 2:22

Back in the early seventies when I was studying French in Tours, France; a group of my friends and I used to take long, leisurely walks through the luscious Lorraine Valley on the week-ends. On one of our memorable lunch breaks, we sat down and opened a wineskin. Nothing! “It’s an old wineskin,” said one of my friends aghast, “all the new wine is gone.” That’s when I understood what Jesus was talking about when He said: “No one pours new wine into old wineskins.”

The fermentation process of the grape creates gasses, and the gasses stretch the wineskins. A new wineskin can expand because it is new, whereas an old wineskin that has already been stretched to capacity will crack and rupture, emptying the new wine on the ground.

Jesus uses the analogy of the wine and the wineskin to convey His teaching about the new life of the Gospel. The new wine represents the good news of the Gospel; and the old wineskins represent unreformed human nature. The old, unreformed nature of man needs to be discarded so that a new reformed self (new wineskin) can be re-created to receive the good news of the Gospel, fruitfully.

Jesus began His public ministry by insisting: “Reform your lives, and believe in the good news.” (Mark 1:4). This simple message says it all. To reform our lives means we must be willing to change the old self; we must be willing to let go of the old ways of behaving which St. Paul describes in Ephesians, chapter four. “No more lying, then…do not let anger lead you into sin…the man who used to rob must stop robbing …do not use harmful words, but only helpful words…Do not make God’s Holy Spirit sad… Get rid of all bitterness, passion, and anger…. nor more shouting or insults, no more hateful feelings of any sort” (Ephesians 4:20-31). These old ways of behaving, which St. Paul describes, resemble old wineskins which are incapable of accommodating the good news of the Gospel which is “kind and tender-hearted to one another, and (which) forgives one another, as God has forgiven (us) through Christ” (Ephesians 4:32).

The Lord wants us to reform our old lives so that we can become like new wineskins, capable of accepting and acting upon the good news.

We have to realize that our human nature is a fallen nature; it is not perfect, but it can be perfected by God’s Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a renewing spirit; it frees our human spirit from the downward pull of sin.

Send forth your Spirit, Lord, that we may be re-created.

Fr. Hugh Duffy

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