New and Improved!

One of the ways our culture defines progress is identifying it with something new. Conversely, the old cannot be progress. But as we consider that cultural value, there are many obvious flaws. Over the past 100 years, “the American Century,” as some have called it, there have been many, many new things. Technology is the most obvious of these, along with medicine, industrial and commercial practices, globalization of economics, etc. But in the past one hundred years, more people have been killed as a result of warfare than the past 20 centuries combined. The suicide rate among young and old has steadily climbed. The divorce rate went from extremely rare to 50% of marriages. The level of knowledge, though unquestionably broadened, has also thinned, with the average high school graduate of today knowing less about geography, math, history, literature, and English grammar than the average 8th grader in 1905. Drug use continues to climb, with junior highers now routinely involved. The percentage of Americans who identify themselves as devout Christians declines steadily every decade. So in light of this you might wonder why our culture continues to identify newness as progress, rather than the other way around. It is only in the last several hundred years that this perspective has taken hold. Up until the Rennaissance of the 1500's, the past was looked to for the answers to society’s questions. People pored over the Bible, Plato, Tacitus, and Augustine to gain the knowledge and insights of the ancients. Ask your average person on the street today and they are unlikely to be able to tell you what Plato taught, or if they’ve even heard of his work.


Mark 2:18-28
“Now John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. Some people came and asked Jesus, "How is it that John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting, but yours are not?" 19 Jesus answered, "How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? They cannot, so long as they have him with them. 20 But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast. 21 "No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. 22 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, he pours new wine into new wineskins."  23 One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain. 24 The Pharisees said to him, "Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?" 25 He answered, "Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? 26 In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions."  27 Then he said to them, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.  28 So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”

But now here’s  Jesus, talking about doing new stuff. He’s talking about bursting the old wineskins of the past order of things with the new message of grace from God. He’s talking about remembering the purpose for old conventions and behaviors, that they are meant to be a help, not a hindrance. He’s talking about enjoying the moment the bridegroom is there, not worrying about when He is gone. God’s Kingdom is coming, He’s saying, and that Kingdom has to do with faith and freedom, with joy and friendship. When Jesus came preaching the coming of the Kingdom of God, He portrayed it as a new thing. God’s plan was unfolding and opening up to the world like a early spring flower.