“The Old
and the New”
Luke
5:33-39
Maybe that is why I always look at
the beginning of a new year with a certain amount of optimism, because I always
look at the beginning of a new year as an opportunity of renewal, an
opportunity to be someone different today and tomorrow, than what I was
yesterday, or yester-year.
I think for the most part people are genuinely optimistic
about the start of a new year, because I think people genuinely want things to
be better, want life to be better, and that is good. We should never be content with the status
quo, with things remaining how they are, with the old ways of being and
doing. We should always have a progressive
vision, a progressive vision that is moving towards improvement, moving towards
improvement of ourselves and the people, and the systems, and the culture
around us.
It is so easy to get bogged down in the business as usual mentality and believe at best nothing can change, or at worst that nothing should change. The rut of status quo is a hard rut to climb out of, because it is easier to stay in it. It is easier to stay in the rut of the old than it is to step out into something new. The rut of the old can be very seductive luring us with the promise of security of comfort and contentment, offering us safety from the risk of putting ourselves on the line for that which is greater than us. And yet, what we find is that the rut of the old only leaves us to wonder about what could have been or might have been if we had only taken that next faithful step into the new and risked ourselves for that which we cannot fully see or fully know.
And so our tendency is to remain
tethered to the old, never moving beyond the length of the rope tied around
us. Too many of us have the tendency to
live more in the past than to live in the present. Too many of us have the tendency to keep our
gaze set on what is behind us, rather than envisioning what is before us. Too many of us have the tendency to remain
tied to what was, rather than living in the freedom of what can be, and may be,
and will be. There are people who are so
engrained and immersed in the rut of the old, that they do not even believe
God’s fresh, new word is speaking to them, that it
must be meant only for others.
The start of a new year helps us
to make that break from the past in order to begin living in the surprising new
possibilities and potentials that are before us, in the exciting new
opportunities that have yet to be realized, but are there ready for us to grab
a hold of to make them a new reality for us.
Maybe that is why the start of the new year brings with it a sense of
renewal and hope and optimism, because with it comes the freedom of choice, the
freedom to chose between the old and the new, between the rut of status quo and
the array of new possibilities and potentials and opportunities that God will
put before us that will have a direct impact on our lives of faith and the
world in which we live.
There is no freedom of choice in
the past. The past is beyond our
control, beyond our ability to change, but the present and the future are not
beyond our control. They are not beyond
our ability to make a real and lasting change for the greater good, for that
which directed and centered on the radical newness of God’s presence and
kingdom.
Today is not
only the first day of the new year, but it is also the
first Sunday after Christmas. Christmas
points us to the radical newness of God’s presence in the midst of life. In Jesus Christ, God chose to be with us in
life, in our life together as God’s people, in a way that is intimate and
relational. But just as Christmas points
us to the radical newness of God’s presence in the midst of life, Christmas
also points us to the radical newness of the inbreaking
of God’s kingdom, a kingdom marked by hope, peace, joy, love, a kingdom marked
by justice, righteousness, and freedom, a kingdom marked by mercy,
reconciliation, and salvation.
In the birth of Jesus Christ comes
the kingdom of God and with it the hope of something better, the hope of
something greater than ourselves, the hope of that which is beyond what our
eyes can see and our minds can know.
This radical newness of God’s presence and kingdom brings with it a
calling to put away our old habits and routines, our old selves, and begin
living in a new way, in the new reality of God with us.
In our text
for this morning, Jesus is confronted by the Pharisees and their scribes about
this radical newness of God’s presence and kingdom in a discussion about the
old and the new. The Pharisees and
scribes questioned why Jesus’ disciples were not adhering to the old traditions
and practices of prayer and fasting, but instead were eating and drinking. Jesus answers not by criticizing the old
traditions and practices, for even Jesus himself fasted and prayed, but instead
Jesus moves the conversation to that which is of greater importance than simply
appropriate occasions and times for engaging in spiritual disciples. Jesus gives them a vision of the new things
that are taking place, of the new reality of God with us in which they are to called to live in.
The parables of the old and new
garments and the old and new wine are wonderful images of how difficult it is
to remain tied to the old and at the same time live in the new. The disciples can no more join to the old
ways of being and doing, their new sense of life in the radical newness of God’s
presence and kingdom than one can take a piece of new garment and join it to an
old garment, or put new wine into old wineskins. The Pharisees and scribes were stuck in the
rut of the old, in the rut of the status quo and business as usual, and they could
not see beyond its walls to the glorious new possibilities, potentials and
opportunities that were now available for them.
They could not see the radical newness that had arrived, the radical
newness of God’s presence and kingdom.
Instead they had been seduced by the lure of the old, of the false
promise of security of comfort and contentment, and know they were unable and
unwillingly to take a hold of the new things God was doing, of the new reality
of God’s presence and kingdom.
If we allow the rut of the old to
dictate our lives, if we allow ourselves to remain tied only to the past, our
lives of faith will quickly wear out like the old garments, and become stiff
like old wineskins. In doing so, we run
the risk of abandoning the gospel of Jesus Christ for one that is safer, or
restricting it to the point that it only leaves us with a more predictable way
of life, a life without risk, a life without sacrifice, a life without change,
a life without the radical newness of God’s presence and kingdom.
The Apostle Paul once wrote to the church in
You
were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and
deluded by its lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to
clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God
in true righteousness and holiness.
Ephesians 4:22-24
Paul understood that we are not to remain in the old, but
instead to cloth ourselves with the new, with the new garment that is ready and
willing to be used by God, a new garment that is ready and willing to be
fashioned in true righteousness and holiness, a new garment that embodies the
radical newness of God’s presence and kingdom.
Paul also
wrote these words to Titus:
But
when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us,
not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to
his mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit. This
Spirit he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that,
having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope
of eternal life. Titus 3:4-7
Here
again, Paul tells us the great truth of the Biblical witness that God has
poured out into us the Holy Spirit. It
is through the Holy Spirit that we have been made a new people, a new creation
to be with God and for God. The Holy
Spirit is not a stagnant commodity, like old wine, that is unmoving and
unchanging, the Holy Spirit is the very living and active presence of God’s
very self, that is poured into us stretch us and grow us, like new wine in new
wineskins, so that we too may be a living and active people with God and for
God.
These
passages point to the resounding theme throughout the Biblical witness, but
they are not the only ones. The prophet Isaiah
writes, “For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former
things shall not be remembered or come to mind.” (65:17) The prophet Jeremiah writes, “The days
are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house
of
Out of the
old, God has made the new through Jesus Christ, a new people, a new covenant, a
new creation.
One this first day of the new
year, we bring with us the lessons from the past, the joys and sorrows we have
felt, the gifts and blessings we have received, and even the baggage of regrets
and failures that we carry with us, but all of these things are of the past,
things of the old, things that are passing away, and we will leave them where
they belong. Instead, let us turn our
vision toward this new year, toward the new possibilities, potentials, and
opportunities that God will put before us.
Let us begin this new year in the freedom of
being new people, a new people ready and willing to break free from the old to
step out into the new, into the new future that is waiting to be realized, into
the radical newness of living and serving in God’s presence and kingdom that
has come in Jesus Christ. Amen.