wine

179:5.1As they brought Je­sus the third cup of wine, the “cup of bless­ing,” he arose from the couch and, tak­ing the cup in his hands, blessed it, say­ing: “Take this cup, all of you, and drink of it. This shall be the cup of my re­mem­brance. This is the cup of the bless­ing of a new dis­pen­sa­tion of grace and truth. This shall be to you the em­blem of the be­stowal and min­istry of the di­vine Spirit of Truth. And I will not again drink this cup with you un­til I drink in new form with you in the Fa­ther’s eter­nal king­dom.”

179:5.2The apos­tles all sensed that some­thing out of the or­di­nary was tran­spir­ing as they drank of this cup of bless­ing in pro­found rev­er­ence and per­fect si­lence. The old Pass­over com­mem­o­rated the emer­gence of their fa­thers from a state of racial slav­ery into in­di­vid­ual free­dom; now the Mas­ter was in­sti­tut­ing a new re­mem­brance sup­per as a sym­bol of the new dis­pen­sa­tion wherein the en­slaved in­di­vid­ual emerges from the bond­age of cer­e­mo­ni­al­ism and self­ish­ness into the spir­i­tual joy of the broth­er­hood and fel­low­ship of the lib­er­ated faith sons of the liv­ing God.

179:5.3When they had fin­ished drink­ing this new cup of re­mem­brance, the Mas­ter took up the bread and, af­ter giv­ing thanks, broke it in pieces and, di­rect­ing them to pass it around, said: “Take this bread of re­mem­brance and eat it. I have told you that I am the bread of life. And this bread of life is the united life of the Fa­ther and the Son in one gift. The word of the Fa­ther, as re­vealed in the Son, is in­deed the bread of life.” When they had par­taken of the bread of re­mem­brance, the sym­bol of the liv­ing word of truth in­car­nated in the like­ness of mor­tal flesh, they all sat down.

187:2.3Cru­ci­fix­ion was re­sorted to in or­der to pro­vide a cruel and lin­ger­ing pun­ish­ment, the vic­tim some­times not dy­ing for sev­eral days. There was con­sid­er­able sen­ti­ment against cru­ci­fix­ion in Je­ru­sa­lem, and there ex­isted a so­ci­ety of Jew­ish women who al­ways sent a rep­re­sen­ta­tive to cru­ci­fix­ions for the pur­pose of of­fer­ing drugged wine to the vic­tim in or­der to lessen his suf­fer­ing. But when Je­sus tasted this nar­co­tized wine, as thirsty as he was, he re­fused to drink it. The Mas­ter chose to re­tain his hu­man con­scious­ness un­til the very end. He de­sired to meet death, even in this cruel and in­hu­man form, and con­quer it by vol­un­tary sub­mis­sion to the full hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence.

70:3.8In later times, blood di­luted with red wine was used, and even­tu­ally wine alone was drunk to seal the adop­tion cer­e­mony, which was sig­ni­fied in the touch­ing of the wine cups and con­sum­mated by the swal­low­ing of the bev­er­age. The He­brews em­ployed a mod­i­fied form of this adop­tion cer­e­mony. Their Arab an­ces­tors made use of the oath taken while the hand of the can­di­date rested upon the gen­er­a­tive or­gan of the tribal na­tive. The He­brews treated adopted aliens kindly and fra­ter­nally. “The stranger that dwells with you shall be as one born among you, and you shall love him as your­self.”

187:3.5When Je­sus saw them eat and drink, he looked down upon them and said, “I thirst.” When the cap­tain of the guard heard Je­sus say, “I thirst,” he took some of the wine from his bot­tle and, putting the sat­u­rated sponge stop­per upon the end of a javelin, raised it to Je­sus so that he could moisten his parched lips.

137:4.10Mary was danc­ing with glee. She did not know how the wine would be pro­duced, but she con­fi­dently be­lieved that she had fi­nally per­suaded her first-born son to as­sert his au­thor­ity, to dare to step forth and claim his po­si­tion and ex­hibit his Mes­sianic power. And, be­cause of the pres­ence and as­so­ci­a­tion of cer­tain uni­verse pow­ers and per­son­al­i­ties, of which all those pres­ent were wholly ig­no­rant, she was not to be dis­ap­pointed. The wine Mary de­sired and which Je­sus, the God-man, hu­manly and sym­pa­thet­i­cally wished for, was forth­com­ing.

137:4.11Near at hand stood six wa­ter­pots of stone, filled with wa­ter, hold­ing about twenty gal­lons apiece. This wa­ter was in­tended for sub­se­quent use in the fi­nal pu­rifi­ca­tion cer­e­monies of the wed­ding cel­e­bra­tion. The com­mo­tion of the ser­vants about these huge stone ves­sels, un­der the busy di­rec­tion of his mother, at­tracted Je­sus’ at­ten­tion, and go­ing over, he ob­served that they were draw­ing wine out of them by the pitcher­ful.

137:4.12It was grad­u­ally dawn­ing upon Je­sus what had hap­pened. Of all per­sons pres­ent at the mar­riage feast of Cana, Je­sus was the most sur­prised. Oth­ers had ex­pected him to work a won­der, but that was just what he had pur­posed not to do. And then the Son of Man re­called the ad­mo­ni­tion of his Per­son­al­ized Thought Ad­juster in the hills. He re­counted how the Ad­juster had warned him about the in­abil­ity of any power or per­son­al­ity to de­prive him of the cre­ator pre­rog­a­tive of in­de­pen­dence of time. On this oc­ca­sion power trans­form­ers, mid­way­ers, and all other re­quired per­son­al­i­ties were as­sem­bled near the wa­ter and other nec­es­sary el­e­ments, and in the face of the ex­pressed wish of the Uni­verse Cre­ator Sov­er­eign, there was no es­cap­ing the in­stan­ta­neous ap­pear­ance of wine. And this oc­cur­rence was made dou­bly cer­tain since the Per­son­al­ized Ad­juster had sig­ni­fied that the ex­e­cu­tion of the Son’s de­sire was in no way a con­tra­ven­tion of the Fa­ther’s will.

137:4.13But this was in no sense a mir­a­cle. No law of na­ture was mod­i­fied, ab­ro­gated, or even tran­scended. Noth­ing hap­pened but the ab­ro­ga­tion of time in as­so­ci­a­tion with the ce­les­tial as­sem­bly of the chem­i­cal el­e­ments req­ui­site for the elab­o­ra­tion of the wine. At Cana on this oc­ca­sion the agents of the Cre­ator made wine just as they do by the or­di­nary nat­u­ral pro­cesses ex­cept that they did it in­de­pen­dently of time and with the in­ter­ven­tion of super­hu­man agen­cies in the mat­ter of the space as­sem­bly of the nec­es­sary chem­i­cal in­gre­di­ents.

138:8.53. The turn­ing of the wa­ter into wine at Cana. Je­sus se­ri­ously charged them, say­ing, “Tell no man about the wa­ter and the wine.”

93:4.14While no sac­ri­fices were per­mit­ted within the colony, Mel­chiz­e­dek well knew how dif­fi­cult it is to sud­denly up­root long-es­tab­lished cus­toms and ac­cord­ingly had wisely of­fered these peo­ple the sub­sti­tute of a sacra­ment of bread and wine for the older sac­ri­fice of flesh and blood. It is of rec­ord, “Mel­chiz­e­dek, king of Salem, brought forth bread and wine.” But even this cau­tious in­no­va­tion was not al­to­gether suc­cess­ful; the var­i­ous tribes all main­tained aux­il­iary cen­ters on the out­skirts of Salem where they of­fered sac­ri­fices and burnt of­fer­ings. Even Abra­ham re­sorted to this bar­barous prac­tice af­ter his vic­tory over Ched­or­la­o­mer; he sim­ply did not feel quite at ease un­til he had of­fered a con­ven­tional sac­ri­fice. And Mel­chiz­e­dek never did suc­ceed in fully erad­i­cat­ing this pro­cliv­ity to sac­ri­fice from the re­li­gious prac­tices of his fol­low­ers, even of Abra­ham.

140:6.2When he had en­tered the gar­den, he gath­ered the apos­tles around him and taught them fur­ther, say­ing: “You find it dif­fi­cult to re­ceive my mes­sage be­cause you would build the new teach­ing di­rectly upon the old, but I de­clare that you must be re­born. You must start out afresh as lit­tle chil­dren and be will­ing to trust my teach­ing and be­lieve in God. The new gospel of the king­dom can­not be made to con­form to that which is. You have wrong ideas of the Son of Man and his mis­sion on earth. But do not make the mis­take of think­ing that I have come to set aside the law and the proph­ets; I have not come to de­stroy but to ful­fill, to en­large and il­lu­mi­nate. I come not to transgress the law but rather to write these new com­mand­ments on the tablets of your hearts.

147:7.2On Tues­day evening Je­sus was con­duct­ing one of his cus­tom­ary classes of ques­tions and an­swers when the leader of the six spies said to him: “I was to­day talk­ing with one of John’s dis­ci­ples who is here at­tend­ing upon your teach­ing, and we were at a loss to un­der­stand why you never com­mand your dis­ci­ples to fast and pray as we Phar­isees fast and as John bade his fol­low­ers.” And Je­sus, re­fer­ring to a state­ment by John, an­swered this ques­tioner: “Do the sons of the bridecham­ber fast while the bride­groom is with them? As long as the bride­groom re­mains with them, they can hardly fast. But the time is com­ing when the bride­groom shall be taken away, and dur­ing those times the chil­dren of the bridecham­ber un­doubt­edly will fast and pray. To pray is nat­u­ral for the chil­dren of light, but fast­ing is not a part of the gospel of the king­dom of heaven. Be re­minded that a wise tai­lor does not sew a piece of new and un­shrunk cloth upon an old gar­ment, lest, when it is wet, it shrink and pro­duce a worse rent. Nei­ther do men put new wine into old wine skins, lest the new wine burst the skins so that both the wine and the skins per­ish. The wise man puts the new wine into fresh wine skins. There­fore do my dis­ci­ples show wis­dom in that they do not bring too much of the old or­der over into the new teach­ing of the gospel of the king­dom. You who have lost your teacher may be jus­ti­fied in fast­ing for a time. Fast­ing may be an ap­pro­pri­ate part of the law of Moses, but in the com­ing king­dom the sons of God shall ex­pe­ri­ence free­dom from fear and joy in the di­vine spirit.” And when they heard these words, the dis­ci­ples of John were com­forted while the Phar­isees them­selves were the more con­founded.

147:7.3Then the Mas­ter pro­ceeded to warn his hear­ers against en­ter­tain­ing the no­tion that all olden teach­ing should be re­placed en­tirely by new doc­trines. Said Je­sus: “That which is old and also true must abide. Like­wise, that which is new but false must be re­jected. But that which is new and also true, have the faith and cour­age to ac­cept. Re­mem­ber it is writ­ten: ‘For­sake not an old friend, for the new is not com­pa­ra­ble to him. As new wine, so is a new friend; if it be­comes old, you shall drink it with glad­ness.’”

89:9.2In con­nec­tion with the Mother of God cult, in Mex­ico and else­where, a sacra­ment of cakes and wine was even­tu­ally uti­lized in lieu of the flesh and blood of the older hu­man sac­ri­fices. The He­brews long prac­ticed this rit­ual as a part of their Pass­over cer­e­monies, and it was from this cer­e­mo­nial that the later Chris­tian ver­sion of the sacra­ment took its ori­gin.

127:6.7That evening about twi­light these four sat down and par­took of the first Pass­over feast ever to be cel­e­brated by de­vout Jews with­out the paschal lamb. The un­leav­ened bread and the wine had been made ready for this Pass­over, and these em­blems, which Je­sus termed “the bread of life” and “the wa­ter of life,” he served to his com­pan­ions, and they ate in solemn con­for­mity with the teach­ings just im­parted. It was his cus­tom to en­gage in this sacra­men­tal rit­ual when­ever he paid sub­se­quent vis­its to Beth­any. When he re­turned home, he told all this to his mother. She was shocked at first but came grad­u­ally to see his view­point; nev­er­the­less, she was greatly re­lieved when Je­sus as­sured her that he did not in­tend to in­tro­duce this new idea of the Pass­over in their fam­ily. At home with the chil­dren he con­tin­ued, year by year, to eat the Pass­over “ac­cord­ing to the law of Moses.”

179:1.1When the apos­tles had been shown up­stairs by John Mark, they be­held a large and com­modi­ous cham­ber, which was com­pletely fur­nished for the sup­per, and ob­served that the bread, wine, wa­ter, and herbs were all in readi­ness on one end of the ta­ble. Ex­cept for the end on which rested the bread and wine, this long ta­ble was sur­rounded by thir­teen re­clin­ing couches, just such as would be pro­vided for the cel­e­bra­tion of the Pass­over in a well-to-do Jew­ish house­hold.

179:2.2Af­ter the wine and the wa­ter had been mixed, they brought the cup to Je­sus, who, when he had re­ceived it from the hand of Thad­deus, held it while he of­fered thanks. And when he had fin­ished of­fer­ing thanks, he said: “Take this cup and di­vide it among your­selves and, when you par­take of it, re­al­ize that I shall not again drink with you the fruit of the vine since this is our last sup­per. When we sit down again in this man­ner, it will be in the king­dom to come.”

90:4.9The Greeks were the first to evolve truly ra­tio­nal meth­ods of treat­ing the sick. Both the Greeks and the Egyp­tians re­ceived their med­i­cal knowl­edge from the Eu­phrates val­ley. Oil and wine was a very early med­i­cine for treat­ing wounds; cas­tor oil and opium were used by the Sume­ri­ans. Many of these an­cient and ef­fec­tive se­cret reme­dies lost their power when they be­came known; se­crecy has al­ways been es­sen­tial to the suc­cess­ful prac­tice of fraud and su­per­sti­tion. Only facts and truth court the full light of com­pre­hen­sion and re­joice in the il­lu­mi­na­tion and en­light­en­ment of sci­en­tific re­search.

164:1.3But Je­sus dis­cerned the lawyer’s mo­tive, and in­stead of falling into the trap, he pro­ceeded to tell his hear­ers a story, a story which would be fully ap­pre­ci­ated by any Jeri­cho au­di­ence. Said Je­sus: “A cer­tain man was go­ing down from Je­ru­sa­lem to Jeri­cho, and he fell into the hands of cruel brig­ands, who robbed him, stripped him and beat him, and de­part­ing, left him half dead. Very soon, by chance, a cer­tain priest was go­ing down that way, and when he came upon the wounded man, see­ing his sorry plight, he passed by on the other side of the road. And in like man­ner a Levite also, when he came along and saw the man, passed by on the other side. Now, about this time, a cer­tain Samar­i­tan, as he jour­neyed down to Jeri­cho, came across this wounded man; and when he saw how he had been robbed and beaten, he was moved with com­pas­sion, and go­ing over to him, he bound up his wounds, pour­ing on oil and wine, and set­ting the man upon his own beast, brought him here to the inn and took care of him. And on the mor­row he took out some money and, giv­ing it to the host, said: ‘Take good care of my friend, and if the ex­pense is more, when I come back again, I will re­pay you.’ Now let me ask you: Which of these three turned out to be the neigh­bor of him who fell among the rob­bers?” And when the lawyer per­ceived that he had fallen into his own snare, he an­swered, “He who showed mercy on him.” And Je­sus said, “Go and do like­wise.”