Before asking Jesus to make new wine of you, study winemaking

uOn the rocky road to creating ROCI21, I went through a painful process of emotional upheaval as all that was dysfunctional and damaged, old and outworn, surfaced in my life so I could accept, forgive, release it and grow towards Christ. During this time, as my life, job and friendships collapsed around me, I turned to modern worship songs for solace. The song I clung to in my seemingly endless darkest hours was Hillsong Worship’s ‘New Wine’:

New Wine

In the crushing
In the pressing
You are making new wine
In the soil I now surrender
You are breaking new ground

So I yield to You and to Your careful hand
When I trust You I don’t need to understand

Make me Your vessel
Make me an offering
Make me whatever You want me to be
I came here with nothing
But all You have given me
Jesus bring new wine out of me

New wineskins

The song draws its inspiration from chapter 5 of Luke, where Jesus is rebuked for not fasting. He gives the following reply: “No one pours new wine into old wineskins. The new wine would swell and burst the old skins. Then the wine would be lost, and the skins would be ruined. New wine must be put only into new wineskins.” (Luke 5:37-39)

‘New Wine’ soothed me not just because it’s a great song, but because I could feel Jesus making me into new wine, tread by painful tread. I was the wineskin—and before I could contain wine, I had to be made new.

Made new—what does that mean? It’s not just a vague aphorism. It means to have our existing selves shattered so a new self can emerge. It means stripping away layers of deeply buried beliefs and behaviours. Stepping out of our comfort zones over and over again until we ‘burst our old skins’ and new life flows into our lives.

But let’s stick with Jesus’ winemaking analogy.

Winemaking

A fascinating article on the JesusWalk site details winemaking in Biblical times:

In the warm climate of Palestine, grape juice began to ferment very quickly and there was no easy way to prevent fermentation. After the first state of fermentation had taken place in the wine vat, the wine was separated from the lees (that is, sediment of dead yeast, tartar crystals, small fragments of grape skins, etc.) and strained through a sieve or piece of cloth (cf. Matthew 23:24). After four to six days it was poured into clay jars lined with pitch (called amphorae in Greece, e.g. Jeremiah 48:11) or animal skins for storage and further fermentation.

Let’s break the process down: pressing, crushing, fermenting, separating, sieving. These are great things to happen to grapes. They’re great things to happen to us, too, but they are painful.

Let’s break the process down: pressing, crushing, fermenting, separating, sieving. These are great things to happen to grapes. They’re great things to happen to us, too, but they are painful.

Jesus’ parable about new wine—and Hillsong’s wonderful interpretation of it—has struck a chord with today’s Christians; Hillsong’s ‘New Wine’ video has over 38 million views on YouTube alone. We all want to be made new.

If you intend with all your heart for your life to change, and are willing to step out of your comfort zone to break down your current circumstances, Jesus will make new wine of you. But before asking Jesus for this, please study winemaking.

Here is Hillsong’s majestic ‘New Wine’ in all its glory.

Photo by Maja Petric on Unsplash