They said to him, “John’s disciples often fast and pray, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours go on eating and drinking.” Jesus answered, “Can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; in those days they will fast.” He told them this parable: “No one tears a piece out of a new garment to patch an old one. Otherwise, they will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, ‘The old is better.’” (Luke 5:33-39)

I have to think of this past Sunday’s sermon when I read this text from Luke.

The coming of Jesus is another one of those watershed moments: another shifting of the ages in terms of how God deals with his people. In 1 Samuel it’s the shift from the tribal, nomadic time of the Judges to the more established nationalistic time of the Kings. Here it is the shift from the Old Testament to the New, from Judaism to Christianity, from the Old Israel to the New Israel, from law to grace, from the time of prophets, priests, and kings to the time of Jesus who fulfilled them all.

New wine requires new wine skins and new cloth cannot be sown on old, because both of these new things are still, as preacher Fred Craddock says: “alive, changing, not fixed in form or size, and therefore… not to be treated as thought they were dead” and rigid. So it was with the new revelation of Jesus. Jesus represented a significant shift of the ages that would burst the old forms if those old forms attempted to contain him. Indeed, they could not. The new revelation of Jesus required new forms. No longer a Temple, but a living body of people called a church, for instance.

We often act as though this was the last shift point of the ages. The revelation of Jesus was the final chapter in God’s work in the world, we think. But if God remains a living and active God, sovereign in all his ways: why should his work cease? By thinking of ourselves as Reformed Christians, we implicitly confirm that God does do new things that require new forms: like the creation of an entirely new branch of Christianity that calls itself Protestantism nearly 500 years ago.

But having tasted the old and familiar: who wants to drink the new? We resist new movements of the Holy Spirit. We pray to Jesus for stability, comfort, and peace: not for change. What God has given us has suited just fine up until now, why should it be different?

It is a hard thing to discern the times and to discern the sovereign movements of the Spirit of God. When are we supposed to reach for the good old vintages of wine, and when ought we be readying new wine skins?

It seems Jesus addresses that conundrum here too. John’s disciples took the old forms: fasting and praying as was the tradition of many within the observant Jewish faith of that day. But Jesus’ disciples took the new—feasting and drinking freely. Jesus doesn’t answer the question between these two forms with any hard and fast rules, but rather suggests that there is a seasonality and a wise discernment needed here. A time to feast and a time to fast. A time for joy and a time for sorrow. A time for tradition and a time for innovation.

The question Jesus leaves with us then, is what time is it now? It’s a question the church—Reformed-and-always-Reforming—must always wrestle with.