Renew Your Wineskins

5 September 2025  Luke 5:33-39 Dr. David C. Campbell

“And no one puts new wine into old wineskins…” Luke 5:37

No new wine in old wineskins.

It would be easy to take this as a slam on old people. Only the young, the flexible, the agile can receive the good news of Jesus. The old don’t even want the “new wine.” They just sit around and grumble, “The old is good enough for me” (cf. Luke 5:39).

It would be easy if you don’t know anything about Jesus, or the Bible that He loves.

The Bible loves old people. Abraham and Sarah became bearers of God’s promise when they were old. They were well past prime time for having children when they conceived Isaac. Moses did everything that made him Moses as an old man. All he had managed to accomplish as a young man was to murder an Egyptian soldier, and flee into the wilderness, becoming a shepherd for his father-in-law. Only old man Moses could make Pharaoh blink, part the Red Sea, and receive the Ten Commandments. Zechariah and Elizabeth, like Abraham and Sarah, conceived John the Baptist as senior citizens, and we sing the Song of Zechariah to this day (Luke 1:67-79):

And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;

for you will go before the Lord to prepare His ways,

to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins, through the tender mercy of our God….

Only an old man could sing like that.

The Bible loves old people, and Jesus loves the Bible, so Jesus loves old people, too. Old wineskins are not a problem because they are old.

Old wineskins are a problem because they have not been taken care of.

Wineskins can last for a great many years if they are regularly soaked in oil to preserve their suppleness and elasticity. Similarly, spiritual suppleness and elasticity can be preserved, even deepened, if it is regularly saturated in prayer and reading of the Bible, rubbed in deep by the sacraments of Eucharist and Confession. Souls don’t need to be old to be dry and brittle. Young souls can wear out early by inattention, too. Young souls are wearing out right before our eyes in real time. The data are everywhere – depression, anxiety, loneliness, no meaning, no purpose, no marriages, no wives, no husbands, no children, and not enough old people saturated in prayer and scripture to help them.

None of the disciples of Jesus were “new wineskins,” capable of holding and proclaiming the good news of God’s mercy in Jesus, during Jesus’ earthly ministry. The only thing they did all together, in solemn agreement with each other, prior to Easter, was desert Jesus and flee. It wasn’t until after the Resurrection, after the Ascension, that there was a sudden outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, and the disciples became apostles (see Acts 2:1-47). There have been echoes of that great Pentecost several times over the centuries. One of them produced St. Augustine and St. Benedict, who helped the Church navigate the collapse of the Roman Empire, and create what today we call Western Civilization. Another was the so-called Renaissance of the 12^th Century, which produced St. Francis of Assisi, St. Dominic, and St. Thomas Acquinas, who helped the Church preserve the literary heritage of the Greeks and Romans, thinking and praying their way into the modern era. One was in the beginning of the 19^th century, helping the Church end slavery, and navigate the early years of the Industrial Revolution. All of these outpourings came at desperate moments, and anointed the people who were answers to that desperation.

Perhaps what is needed now is a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and a new anointing. Maybe the anointing of some old people who recognize the Holy Spirit because the Spirit has been rubbed into them for a really longtime. Maybe the anointing of some old people because the Bible loves old people, and Jesus does, too. Maybe we need to pray really hard for that.

In God’s mercy, may it be so.