“Two Parables About You”
Mark 2:21-22

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Pastor Kevin Vogts
Trinity Lutheran Church
Paola, Kansas
Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany—February 8, 2015

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Our text is today’s Gospel Reading, especially these two short parables of Jesus: “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.  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.”

There is good news on the medical horizon for those of us who are squeamish about getting shots.  Someday, shots may be a thing of the past.  Because, more and more, medications are now available in different formats such as inhalants and especially those painless little patches we have become so familiar with.  Just slap on a patch and the medicine is absorbed imperceptibly, non-invasively, painlessly.

In the two parables in today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus tells us that’s how we want our RELIGION to be: imperceptible, non-invasive, painless.  Just a little patch on our lives.  But it won’t work.  “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.” 

Jesus did not come to just patch up the dirty, tattered robe of our sins.  For the robe of your own sinful making is beyond repair, as Isaiah says: “All our righteous acts are like filthy rags.”  We can’t just patch over our sins with a few good works.  Any imperceptible, non-invasive, painless patch-up of our old sinful selves would never be enough.

However, Hebrews says, “We have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”  There was nothing imperceptible or non-invasive or painless about our Lord’s death upon the cross.  Christ himself suffered the pain and agony and torture that it took to cure you of your sins.  Christ himself strips away from you forever the tattered rags of your sins and clothes you before God in the glorious, perfect robe of his own righteousness. 

Paul puts it this way in Colossians: “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.  But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation.” 

Through faith in his Son, on account of his sacrifice, that is how God sees you right now: “Holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation.”  In the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the father says, “Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him.”  In the same way, your heavenly Father has spiritually clothed you in the best robe, the glorious, perfect robe of Christ’s own righteousness.  As the Apostle John writes, “These are they who . . . have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. . . and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from every sin.”

Paul says in Galatians, “For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.”  One way to look at these two parables, the unshrunk cloth and the new wineskins, is as an allusion by Jesus to the two Sacraments he would later give to his Church, those sacred acts through which he promises to create and sustain saving faith within us.

The washing of the old garment with a patch of unshrunk cloth alludes to Holy Baptism, which Paul describes as, “The washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.”  Holy Baptism does not just patch up your sins, it washes them away forever, as the book of Acts says, “Be baptized, and wash away your sins.”  Holy Baptism does not just “patch on” a little goodness in the sight of God, it makes you born again as his own child.  Holy Baptism does not just patch over your tattered rags, it gives you a whole new robe of Christ’s righteousness: “For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.”

“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.  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.”

In 1st Corinthians, Paul describes Holy Communion as, “The cup of blessing.”  The first parable of the unshrunk cloth alludes to the new birth and the robe of Christ’s righteousness we receive from our Lord through the Sacrament of Holy Baptism.  The second parable alludes to the Sacrament of Holy Communion, “the cup of blessing,” through which our Lord strengthens and preserves us steadfast in the true faith unto life everlasting.  Jesus pours out the blessed new wine of his own blood into wineskins like you and me, wineskins he himself has made new through faith in him.

So, the parables of the unshrunk cloth and the new wineskins are really, “Two Parables About You,” about your rebirth in Holy Baptism, and your “Holy Communion” with here him at his altar.  For, through the Word and Sacraments the Lord fulfills in you the prayer of Psalm 51: “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.”

In Holy Baptism, the Lord strips away the tattered rags of your sins and clothes you in the robe of Christ’s righteousness.  He himself makes you a new wineskin into which he pours the blessed new wine of his own blood in Holy Communion.  Through the Word and Sacraments, the Lord fulfills in YOU these parables: “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.  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.”