That Day

“I tell you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it anew with you in my Father’s kingdom.” (Matthew 26:29)
Toward the close of the Passover meal that was transformed into the meal that we celebrate today, Jesus gave his followers hope for the future as he promised that he would drink the fruit of the vine with them in the Father’s kingdom. We tend to focus on that part of the sentence, reminding one another that Jesus is coming back for us and that we will be with him throughout eternity. It is good to encourage one another in this manner…in fact, Paul tells us to do so in I Thessalonians 4:16-18 as he writes,
For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words.
But these words also imply something else, in the meantime Jesus is absent. Jesus said that he would not drink the fruit of the vine again until he drank it in God’s kingdom. In the upper room, those who drank the cup heard that Jesus would not be feasting with them any more for a while. His absence would soon be painfully real to them. They would be facing the world without him from now on. Yes, he had promised the spirit, and the spirit did come, and Jesus is with us in spirit today, but he is not physically present as he once was.
The disciples who ate in that upper room would face the pain of a cruel world. They would be persecuted. They would suffer. And they would ultimately die – most of them as martyrs. The fact that we continue to gather around this table reminds us of the same thing. In this world we will face trouble and persecution, pain and loss…our Savior is presently absent. We cannot escape that fact.
But he will return. And we will go home. And we will feast with him. And we will never again face pain or loss or suffering of any kind.
In the meantime, we gather around this table, remembering the pain that Jesus went through on our behalf so that we could be cleansed of our sins. And we also gather around this table to wait for his return, when all the pain will be washed away with our sins and we will be brought into the glory of the kingdom of God.