A Twilight Musing

“I tell you I shall not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom” (Matt. 26:29).  With these strange words Jesus ended His last Passover with His disciples, and He concluded the institution of a new ceremony by which they were to remember Him and look forward to being finally united with Him for eternity.  Jesus’ statement is open to several interpretations, and perhaps the richness of the passage does not limit it to just one viewpoint; certainly its usefulness in helping us appreciate the Lord’s Supper is varied. 

In the sense that the feast was not to be fully significant until it became a regular observance after the death and resurrection of Christ and after the powerful manifestation of the Kingdom of God on Pentecost, Jesus did indeed “drink it new” with His disciples as they realized that He was yet with them in a new and even more powerful way.

But Jesus was no doubt also looking forward to the perfection of God’s Kingdom when He will have gathered all His own unto Himself in the everlasting communion of the New Heavens and the New Earth.  At that time, John assures us, “We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is” (I John 3:2). 

Perhaps, however, we should also consider that this drinking anew really applies every time we partake of the Lord’s Supper, for in doing so we renew our faith in Him, and He renews His power in us.   Thus each temporal “new” is a foreshadowing of the perfect, eternal “new” in the Presence of the Father.

Dr. Elton Higgs was a faculty member in the English department of the University of Michigan-Dearborn from 1965-2001. Having retired from UM-D as Prof. of English in 2001, he now lives with his wife in Jackson, MI. He has published scholarly articles on Chaucer, Langland, the Pearl Poet, Shakespeare, and Milton. Recently, Dr. Higgs has self-published a collection of his poetry called Probing Eyes: Poems of a Lifetime, 1959-2019, as well as a book inspired by The Screwtape Letters, called The Ichabod Letters, available as an e-book from Moral Apologetics. (Ed.: Dr. Higgs was the most important mentor during undergrad for the creator of this website, and his influence was inestimable.