Jan 1 - Luke 5:37

Merry Christmas - day 11

no one puts new wine into old wineskins;

otherwise the new wine

will burst the skins and will be spilled,

and the skins will be destroyed.

Luke 5:37

Happy New Year!

Do you understand old vs. new wine and old vs. new skins? New wine is grape juice. It is unfermented, and when it ferments, it expands. New wineskins are pliable -- unexpanded, unstretched. Therefore, when you put new wine in a new skin, both can expand. But if you put new wine in an old skin, the expanding juices will burst the fragile and already expanded leather.

As the new year begins, it's a good occasion to ask: Where am I fragile? How am I brittle? In what ways is my thinking old and unchangable?

Maybe a better way to ask it is: How can I be new? In what ways can I stretch? How will I allow God to stretch my capacity?

Maybe the prayer is:

God, let my faith be renewed this New Year.

Allow me to stretch and to grow.

Challenge my old and brittle

and expendable ways of thinking.

Increase my capacity for caring and serving.

And allow the Holy Spirit to bubble up

in me, like fine new wine.   

In Christ's Love,

Gewurztraminer

(apparently that makes me a guy

who's ideal with Asain food, pork,

and grilled sausage)