There is change stirring in the air.
As a recent empty-nester, I feel this viscerally. Nothing feels normal right now. Our routines have changed. Our grocery budget has changed. The ways I pray for our son and our family have changed.
And I have to be quite candid with you: this new season is uncomfortable.
Yes, I am filled with joy for the exciting journey ahead for my son and the ways he is already forging his path within the communities God has placed him in. And I eagerly anticipate the extra time I now have available to immerse myself in writing projects I have set aside for some time.
But I confess that I also want the old ways back. I want family dinners around the table instead of silent glances at the empty seat. I want the comfort of knowing all my family is under the same roof and sleeping cozily in their beds. I want the steady calendar rhythms we have been accustomed to for the past eighteen years.
I look outside my little family and notice I am not the only one experiencing change. Maybe you notice it too. Maybe you are experiencing the disorienting process of significant life change. You did everything you could to prepare for it and it still hit you like a tsunami of grief, loss, and uncertainty.
New wineskins.
That is what God whispered to me this week. And by whispered, I mean that is where He drew me to in His Word. Because the Holy Spirit will never conflict with His Word, I turned to Luke 5:33-39 to read where Jesus teaches about new wineskins. And I saw this all-caps handwritten note scribbled in my Bible:
A NEW WAY
I had scribbled this note in teal ink, which meant that I wrote this in my Bible when I was writing my Determined study. Nerd that I am, I color code notes in my Bible so I can easily identify when I wrote the note. The color teal corresponds with 2017 – 2019, when I was researching and studying the life and ministry of Jesus according to the gospel of Luke.
In Luke 5:33-39, Jesus responds to a question about the habitual practice of fasting. The unidentified questioners had noticed that Jesus’ disciples did not fast and ultimately implied that His disciples weren’t devoted enough, disciplined enough, or religious enough to qualify for their view of religion. [1]
The question alluded to the legalistic, old-religion ways of the Pharisees. They followed a strict routine, fasting twice each week as part of their devotion. [2] The Pharisees were used to the old way. The way before Jesus took His first breath as an infant here on earth; before He sacrificed His life on the cross for our sins.
But Jesus was teaching them a new way. He did so by telling them two parables: one parable about sewing a new patch onto an old garment and another parable about pouring new wine into old wineskins.
Just as a new patch wouldn’t match an old garment, the gospel of Jesus Christ is incompatible with the Old Testament covenant. Symbolically, old wineskins, worn thin from years of stretching to hold fermented wine, could not contain the transformative power of Jesus’ saving work.
Jesus’ message for the questioners was this: His life and impending death and resurrection would usher in a new way of worship. A new way of salvation. A new way of reconciling oneself to God. The new way is a good way.
The primary invitation in this passage for us today is this: to respond to Jesus’ saving work on the cross with repentance, overwhelming gratitude, acceptance, and surrender.
But as I reflect on this passage and my awareness of change stirring, another invitation emerges. The old way worked for a time. It was sufficient for its own season, beautiful even and certainly life-giving and life-fulfilling. Yet I feel God inviting me to embrace something new, prompting me to ask what must shift within my heart to welcome this change.
My role as a mother remains, it’s simply changing in unfamiliar ways. And so I look to the One who never changes.
My prayer this week has been this: Father, help me shed old wineskins to make space for the new. Whatever that looks like, however You lead. Help me trust you in this new season as change swirls around me. You, who never change, are my constant shield and friend. Help me be ready to receive.
If you are in a season of change, I invite you to sit with the truth that God never changes. Take heart in His goodness as He molds and shapes you into something new. His hand is gentle. His love for you is secure. This new way is a good way, because we follow the One who will make the path clear.
Rooting for you, always.
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[1] France, R. T., et al. Luke: Teach the Text Commentary. Baker Books, 2013, p. 94
[2] France, R. T., et al. Luke: Teach the Text Commentary. Baker Books, 2013, p. 287.
[2] See also Luke 18:12
