Good News in New Clothes

Scripture: Luke 5:36 – “He also told them a parable: ‘No one tears a piece from a new garment and sews it on an old garment; otherwise, not only will one tear the new garment, but the piece from the new will not match the old garment.’” (NRSVue)

We are on the other side of the Christmas season, and I suspect that many people received some new clothes as a gift. How many of you took those new clothes and tore them apart? Probably none. And yet that is what so many of us do with Jesus’ gifts for us.

Jesus is the good news. He is good, bringing hope and purpose to people’s lives. But he is also new. He is something that has never happened before. He represents a new expression of God to a world where there was a lot of pressure to conform to traditions.

Among those who challenged Jesus’ message were Pharisees who insisted that to be holy, one must follow the traditional laws, including fasting as a sign of piety. However, Jesus said his ministry would be one of celebration, where religious truth was found not through muttered prayers of self-denial but through finding fellowship and compassion with others, especially those deemed “sinful” by the rest of society. True sacrifice is not fasting for a day or two, but putting aside one’s comfort, and even one’s life, for the sake of others.

Even two thousand years later, Jesus’ message is still new. It is still a profound challenge to our ways of thinking. However, the radical love that removes all boundaries between God and each other is something that we like to control. We like to fit Jesus into our easy categories of good people and bad people, or classy people and trashy people. Jesus’ teachings don’t fit into these kinds of divisions. And when we try to stick part of Jesus’ message into the old ways of doing things, that ways that don’t challenge us, it is like ripping up a new garment to fit the patch in the old one. The result is destructive, pointless, and ugly.

People, and especially religious people, like the status quo. But Jesus is always new. He is always a challenge to people who settle for a little bit of happiness instead of a lot of joy. Today, I want you to take a moment of silence in your prayers to really listen to something new that God might be telling you. Don’t just look at God’s mercy in the same way. What new message are you hearing? Then ask yourself, what do I do with this good news? Do I rip it up and try to patch it to my old way of thinking? Or do I try to try it on it as God’s special gift to me?

God has provided something marvelous, beautiful, and truly new for you. Embrace it, celebrate it, and let it bring you the kind of holy purpose and joyous compassion that may be missing in your life.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, thank you for all the good things in my life. Help me to embrace your love in new ways today and in even newer ways tomorrow. Amen.