Blaise Pascal was a French mathematician and philosopher. In his writings, which were entitled Pensees, he traces the logical progression of his thought on many subjects. But something happened to Pascal which was beyond logic and rational thought. After his death, his servant found a piece of paper sewn into the lining of his coat. Here, in part, is what he wrote:
The year of grace 1654.
Monday, 23 November, . . .
From about half-past ten in the evening
until about half past midnight.
FIRE.
The God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob.
Not of the philosophers and intellectuals.
Certitude, certitude, feeling, joy, peace . . .
joy, joy, joy, tears of joy. . .
Renunciation, total and sweet.
Complete submission to Jesus Christ. . .
The God whom Pascal encountered was not the God of the theologians and scholars, he was the personal God of the Bible. Pascal did not gain a new theology, he gained a new experience. He gained confidence and joy. And when the true Pascal met the true God there was true surrender — sweet renunciation and complete submission — not as a slavish thing, but as one gives oneself to a lover. There was passion in Pascal’s experience that he described as “FIRE.” This is the fire of Pentecost. The fire of Pentecost is the presence of God, whom the Bible tells us sits on a burning throne (Daniel 7:9), lives in everlasting burnings (Isaiah 33:14), is surrounded by seraphim — flaming angels (Isaiah 6:2) and is himself a consuming fire (Deuteronomy 4:24). Pentecost is when the apostles and other followers of Christ came into contact with the fire of God — so much so that it could be seen hovering over them.
That same powerful presence is available to us today. The fire of God cleanses us, empowers us and fills us with spiritual passion. It ignites our imaginations and fills us with a kind of joy that is unknown to those who have never opened their lives to God. But Pentecost tells us that this is not just a one time experience. It is not just a matter of being saved from hell. This is not a new belief system, a new religion or a new morality — this is a transformation of character, a cleansing and renewal of heart and mind. This is a new perspective. This is hope and joy. This is the new wine of the Spirit. In fact, the wine of the Spirit intoxicates much like distilled wine, for the people seeing the believers at Pentecost said, “They have had too much wine. They are drunk.” Wouldn’t that be something if they said that about us today! Usually the outside world looks at Christians now and says, “They need a drink!” They call us boring, joyless, and sour. Would to God that we would be so full of the joy of the wine of God that people thought we had a little too much to drink. Far better that than having them think we have never experienced any joy in our encounter with God.
Jesus said, “Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved” (Matthew 9:16-17). I want to explore Jesus’ statement from a few angles this morning. But first, let me explain what wineskins were. The hide of an animal was sewn and used as a kind of bottle. The entire hide could be used for a large container, or any part of the skin could be used for a smaller container. In Mel Gibson’s movie, The Passion of the Christ, one of the Roman soldiers drinks from one of these wineskins. They would squeeze the bag to get the wine to come out. These skins could be used over and over, but after awhile they became dry and brittle, and if new wine was put into it, the gasses from the fermentation process would put pressure on the old skin and it could break.
The first observation I want to make is: Wineskins are made to be filled with wine. I hope that this is not too obvious, but nothing is more disappointing than empty wineskins. You will remember the story of Jesus’ mother who came to Jesus when the wineskins were empty. They had run out of wine and it wasn’t time for the celebration to be over. The guests were disappointed and possibly upset with the family. The purpose of wineskins is to be full of wine, and when they are empty, they are not fulfilling the purpose for which they were made. The point is that the people of God were intended to be vessels of the wine of the Spirit. We were created to be full of the Holy Spirit. And when we do not have the Holy Spirit living in us, we are not fulfilling our purpose. Nothing is more disappointing that an empty wineskin.
So many good church people through the years have thought that the Christian life is about believing in God and keeping the rules. They have the skin, but there is nothing in it. They drag around the empty skin of traditional religion without the Holy Spirit living inside. What they have is nominal Christianity. They are good church members, even good moral people, but they have not discovered the power of God which is available to them. Somehow they have missed the point.
I recently read a story of a tourist who stood for long periods of time upon the beach. However, he was facing away from the ocean as he pressed a seashell against his ear. The waves were coming in and crashing just behind him. The more noise the ocean made, the more firmly he pressed the seashell against his ear, so he could hear what he thought was the sound of the ocean. Try to imagine this man in your mind’s eye as he stands with his back to the ocean, attempting to hear the ocean in a seashell — the seashell pressed to one ear and his hand covering the other. He was in the presence of the very thing he was looking for — the sound of the powerful surging of the ocean as it heaved and rolled, but he was oblivious to the reality that was there all the time. Thinking that he could only hear the ocean through the shell, he was not open to hearing the real ocean that was breaking at his feet.
Accept no substitutes. Go after the real thing. Don’t look elsewhere when God is next to you trying to get your attention. You were meant to live being filled with the Spirit of God. There is a place in your life that only God can fill. You don’t have to try artificial means, he is already here. Paul prayed for the Ephesians saying, “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge — that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:16-19).
When this happens, we begin to realize that the Christian life is about more than just having our sins forgiven so that one day we can make it to heaven. We understand that the Christian life is about learning to be a disciple of Jesus Christ and having our character transformed into his likeness. Dallas Willard makes this important point: “Much time is spent among Christians trying to smooth over hurt feelings and even deep wounds, given and received, and to get people to stop being angry, retaliatory, and unforgiving. But suppose, instead, we devoted our time to inspiring and enabling Christians and others to be people who are not offendable and not angry and who are forgiving as a matter of course. ‘Great peace,’ the psalmist says, ‘have they who love Thy law. Nothing trips them up’ (Ps. 119:65). To intentionally make disciples is to open the doorway for people to become like that. That is why it is such a great gift to humankind.” This is a picture of what it is like to be full of the new wine.
The second observation I would like to make is: New wine calls for new wineskins. Again, this is too obvious, but the symbolism here is that the wineskin stands for religious traditions and understandings, and the wine stands for God’s Spirit and his activity. God acted one way in the past, and a whole religious tradition was built around it. But when God began to act in new ways with the coming of Jesus, the old traditions and understandings were inadequate — inadequate, not because they were wrong, but because the symbolism of the old became reality in the new. The old symbolism became fulfilled in the life of Christ. The old practice of sacrificing lambs to atone for people’s sins was no longer adequate, because the perfect Lamb of God was here who would make the perfect sacrifice of himself. The priestly system was no longer necessary when the Great High Priest had come. The old morality, based on law and obligation, was being replaced by a morality that was understood in the context of a relationship with the living God. It was no longer commandments written on stone, but commandments that were written on the heart. It was no longer about believing in God, it was about knowing God. It was no longer about keeping rules, but living in a relationship. It was no longer about a God out there, but a God who lived within.
We used to sing a song entitled, “Give Me That Old Time Religion.” And in the song it says, “It was good for the Hebrew children, and it is good enough for me.” But it wasn’t good enough for the Hebrew children. The faith of Abraham was not adequate for them; God had something more. God had to deliver them from the bondage of Egypt and show them something new. The Red Sea would part, Mount Sinai would explode with fire and the voice of God. Commandments would be given and there would be new lessons learned in the wilderness. The song says, “It was good for Paul and Silas.” The truth is that the old time religion was not good enough for Paul and Silas. For years Paul wanted it to be good enough, until he met Jesus on the road to Damascus. He wanted to keep the old wineskin of Jewish tradition, but Jesus was bursting the seams of that wineskin. New wine had come and new wineskins were called for.
You can’t have the old time religion. Your mother’s faith will not do, it has to be your faith. Your father’s faith is not adequate, you have to have your own experience with God. In fact, your faith, the faith used to get you by several years ago, will not do for today. If your faith has not grown since you first met Christ as a kid, the wineskin has dried and become brittle. It will not do for the new thing that God wants to do in you today. You can’t remain static. You can’t stay where you are. Yesterday’s experience will not do for today. Your faith must be current. The Lord says, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland” (Isaiah 43:18-19). If you are going to be ready for the new thing that God is doing, you are going to have to stop trying to fit it in to what you have always been used to. And, guess what, ten years from now, you will need to adapt again to the new thing God is doing in you and in the world. Jesus said, “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse” (Matthew 9:16). You can’t patch up your old experience and try to make it do. You have to have a whole new experience for a whole new day. You have to continue to grow as a disciple of Jesus Christ.
When I was young, my grandmother used to paint by numbers. Do you remember those? You got a piece of cardboard and there was a line drawing on it. And then the entire picture was divided up into small areas that were numbered. Number one was blue; number two was red; number three was dark green, etc. You then painted the little numbered areas with the corresponding color. There was nothing really artistic about painting the picture. It was merely an exercise in your ability to color within the lines. It was fine, and some of the pictures even turned out to look okay. And if grandma gave you one of her creations, you best frame it and put it on your wall. But none of these “paintings” would ever receive an art award. There was no creativity or originality. Paint by number artists only know how to paint between the lines. They keep the rules, but the heart of an artist is not there. The difference between the old time religion and the new is that the old time religion is about painting between the lines — doing it by the numbers. It is about keeping the rules. But Jesus came to give us the heart of an artist. He gives us a love for beauty. He gives us creativity and a new ability to do what we could never do for ourselves. He puts new wine in a new us.
The third observation I want to make is: Wineskins were made for pouring. This is not profound either, but wine was never stored for long periods of time in wineskin bottles, because the skin would eventually give the wine an unpleasant flavor. The wineskin was used as a bottle for the short time it would take to drink what was in the skin. The skin was not used for preserving wine, but for pouring wine.
Our hearts were never meant to be a storage receptacle for the Holy Spirit, they were meant to be filled with the Spirit so the Spirit could be poured out in the world. The apostle Paul said, “God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us” (Romans 5:5). But Paul understood that God poured out the Holy Spirit to fill us so that we could in turn be poured out for others, for he said, “I am already being poured out like a drink offering” (2 Timothy 4:6). Pouring out his life in service to others became an act of worship to God, and so our lives must be poured out as well. We are not a repository for the Spirit of God, we are wineskins, and as we continue to be filled, we are to pour out what has been placed in us.
I love the Scripture which says, “He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:5-7). We are filled with the Spirit so that we might give the Spirit, and so that our lives might be poured out for others as an act of worship to God. Jesus said, “‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.’ By this he meant the Spirit. . .” (John 7:37-39).
A character in John Updike’s novel, A Month of Sundays, reflects on his experience as a young person in church, and says, “Churches bore for me the relation to God that billboards did to Coca-Cola; they promoted thirst but did nothing to quench it.” I believe his assessment of the church’s failure is correct. We have asked people to be thirsty for God, but we have failed to quench people’s thirst. We have taken in the Spirit, but we have not given out much of it. Through fear, or selfishness, or protectiveness, we have kept the Spirit to ourselves. And a thirsty world is waiting for us to pull the stopper and begin to pour out something for them to drink. We have the wine of the Spirit that will quench the thirst of the world. Let’s not keep it to ourselves, but pour out our lives for others as an act of worship to God.
Rodney J. Buchanan
May 15, 2005, Pentecost
Mulberry St. UMC
Mount Vernon, OH
www.MulberryUMC.org
Rod.Buchanan@MulberryUMC.org
