You know, at the Last Supper, Jesus says, as he's passing around that last cup, he says,

this is the last time that I will drink this wine with you until we drink it together in the coming

kingdom of God. And so there's even this sense that by drinking the cup, that we're looking forward

to kind of the ultimate stage of redemption, the final work of Jesus as the Messiah in which the

scriptures say that there will be a great messianic banquet. Another image that Jesus seems to have

alluded there is in Isaiah chapter 35 when it says that the day will come when the salvation

of Israel will be celebrated with God's Messiah and there'll be, you know, this great

feast where this new wine will be there. And that seems to be what Jesus was referring to.

This day at the end times when Jesus comes again and we once again have a great feast with him.

He says, that'll be the next time that I drink this wine with you. And so when we're partaking

at the sacrament, we now have

several layers of meaning that the scriptures have given us to think about its significance for ourselves.

Past deliverance in the biblical period, our personal deliverance through the work and person of Jesus,

and even that future day when Jesus comes again to complete his messianic work and we will once again be able to

sit at a banquet with him and enjoy that shared cup as we celebrate and just feel the joy of

our own personal redemption. This is John Ryan Jensen, editor of the Church News. Welcome to the

Church News podcast. Today we're taking you on a

journey of connection as we discuss news and events of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Matthew Gray is a professor of ancient scripture and coordinator of the ancient Near Eastern

Studies at Brigham Young University.

We're excited to have him on the church news podcast today as we continue to talk about and prepare

for the Easter season where we commemorate the life, sacrifice, death, and resurrection of our

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