Age Defying

Entering into Jesus’ new and eternal creation

09/04/2020

Luke 5:33-39 The scribes and Pharisees said to Jesus, “The disciples of John the Baptist fast often and offer prayers, and the disciples of the Pharisees do the same; but yours eat and drink.” Jesus answered them, “Can you make the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come, and when the bridegroom is taken away from them, then they will fast in those days.” And he also told them a parable. “No one tears a piece from a new cloak to patch an old one. Otherwise, he will tear the new and the piece from it will not match the old cloak. Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins, and it will be spilled, and the skins will be ruined. Rather, new wine must be poured into fresh wineskins. And no one who has been drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good.’”

Today’s gospel, Luke 5:33-39, has always been problematic and perplexing for me, and maybe for you, too. And that for a couple of reasons. First, it’s not clear which Jesus means is better: the new wineskins and the new wine, or the old wineskins and the old wine. The episode ends with Jesus concluding: “And no one who has been drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good’.” In other words, the old seems better than the new, but that seems to contradict the overall thrust of the passage.

Another point that produces perplexity for me is that I really love old wine, and I generally love old things. Every day I look in the mirror and I see an older Fr. John, especially with this gray beard, and I love old Fr. John. That’s probably one reason my mom wants me to shave it, though. Without the beard my face looks younger and baby-like, which in turn makes my mom feel younger, I suspect. I like old traditional things, like hand-written letters, actual newspapers where the ink comes off on your fingers, books where you can dog-ear the pages, and especially old wine. But in Luke 5:33-39, Jesus seems to reject all that “old stuff” in favor of “new stuff.” But is that our Lord’s real message and meaning? I don’t think so.

If you closely examine the Greek of the New Testament, you discover there are two distinct Greek words both translated into English as “new.” They are “kainos” and “neos.” In English both words are rendered as “new” as in new wineskins and new wine. But the meanings are wildly different. “Neos” means new in the sense of “recent,” like a new day, or a new Iphone or a new car. But with the passing of time, these new things will eventually become old things. They will be replaced by another new day, another new Iphone, and another new car. That’s “neos new.”

But kainos is a completely and even categorically new kind of newness. Kainos is new in the sense of eternal, new, fresh, everlasting. It will be fresh and new 100 years from now; it will be fresh and new one million years from now. Isn’t that what every age-defying cream and lotion promises, but is never able to deliver? Kainos is especially evident in the book of Revelation, as we would expect, since its subject is the newness of heaven. In Rev. 21:1, 2, and 5, St. John describes a new heavens and a new earth, a new Jerusalem, and finally Jesus says: “Behold I make all things new.” In each and every case, the Greek word for new is not neos, in the sense of recent, but kainos, in the sense of eternally new, never to be replaced, enduring forever.

Now, with that handy-dandy distinction between kainos and neos – eternally new versus recently new – let’s go back to Luke 5:33-39, and suddenly, the mystery and messiness evaporates. Jesus is not contrasting new wineskins and new wine with old wineskins and old wine, as if these new things were merely recent or modern, or trendy. The newness Jesus ushers in is not new today and old tomorrow. Rather, Jesus’ newness is eternally new, always fresh and always in the prime of youth. Kainos new is the newness of the new covenant and the New Testament. Kainos new is not just better than the old, it is even better than the new, in the sense of neos new!

In Mark 14:26, when Jesus at the Last Supper talks of drinking the new wine of the Kingdom (the Eucharist), he uses the word “kainos” meaning eternally new. And just so we don’t miss it, at Mass the priest emphasizes the kainos character of the Mass wine, saying: “This is the chalice of my blood, the blood of the new and eternal covenant.” The covenant in Christ’s Blood is not neos new, it is kainos new, it is eternally new, fresh and youthful. It will still be new a 100 years from now, and a million years from now.

My friends, we all worry about growing old. We try to hide the gray hair and the wrinkles and crows feet. We exercise and keep our bodies fit and looking young. And that’s a good thing because our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, as St. Paul says in 1 Cor. 6:19. But there is another kind of newness besides a new car, a new phone or a new day, and that is the “new creation” which St. Paul mentions in 2 Cor. 5:17. That is “kainos new” and it is not just better than the old, it is even better than the new.

Praised be Jesus Christ!