The Lord spoke to Aaron: 'Wine and intoxicating liquor you shall not drink, you and your sons with you, when you draw near the tent of the covenant or approach the alter' . . . Now our Lord and Saviour is called by Paul 'the high-priest of the blessings to come'. He himself is thus 'Aaron' and his 'sons' are the apostles . . . Let us see how we can apply this to our Lord Jesus Christ . . . and to his priests and sons, our apostles. We must first note that this true high-priest, pontifex, with his assistant priests, sacerdotes, before they 'approach the altar', do drink wine. However, when he begins to 'approach the altar' and enter the tent of the covenant, he abstains from wine . . . Before he sacrificed, during his time of the earthly econmoy, inter dispansationum moras, he drank wine. But when the moment of the cross drew nigh, and he was about to 'approach the altar' where he would offer the sacrifice of his flesh, 'he took', we read, 'the cup', blessed it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, 'Take this, all of you, and drink from it'. You, he says, may still drink, you who will not in a little while 'approach the altar'. But he, as one who now does 'approach the altar', said, 'Amen, I say to you, I will not drink from the fruit of this vine until I drink it with you in the Kingdom of my Father'.
If someone there is among you who draws near with purified hearing, let him understand an unspeakable mystery. What does it mean when he says, 'I will not drink . . .?' My savour grieves even now about my sins. My Saviour cannot rejoice as long as I remain in perversion. Why cannot he do this? Because he himself is 'an intercessor for our sins with the Father' . . . How can he, who is an intercessor for my sins, drink the 'wine' of joy, when I grieve him with my sins? How can he, who 'approaches the altar' in order to atone for me a sinner, be joyful when the sadness of sin rises up to him ceaselessly? 'With you', he says, 'I will drink in the Kingdom of my Father'. As long as we do not act in such a way that we can mount up to the Kingdom, he cannot drink alone that wine which he promised to drink with us . . . He who 'took our wounds upon himself' and suffered for our sakes as a healer of souls and bodies: should he regard no longer the festering of wounds? Thus it is that he waits until we should be converted, in order that we may follow in his footsteps and he rejoice 'with us' and 'drink wine with us in the Kingdom of his Father' . . . We are the ones who delay his joy by our negligence towards our own lives . . .
But let us not ignore the fact that it is said not only of Aaron that 'he drank no wine', but also of his sons when they approached the sanctuary. For the apostles too have not yet received their joy: they likewise are waiting for me to participate in their joy. So it is that the saints who depart from here do not immediately receive the full reward of their merits, but wait for us, even if we delay, even if we remain sluggish. They cannot know perfect joy as long as they grieve over our transgressions and weep for our sins. Perhaps you will not believe me on this point . . . but I will bring a witness whom you cannot doubt, the 'teacher of the nations' . . . the apostle Paul. In writing to the Hebrews, after enumerating all the holy fathers who were justified by faith, he adds, 'These, all of whom received the testimony of faith, did not attain the promise, because God had provided for something better for us, so that they should not be made perfect without us'. Do you see then? Abraham is still waiting to attain perfection. Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets are waiting for us in order to attain the perfect blessedness together with us. This is the reason why judgement is kept a secret, being postponed until the Last Day. It is 'one body' which is waiting for justification, 'one body' which rises for judgement. 'Though there are many members, yet there is only one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, I do not need you'. Even if the eye is sound and fit for seeing, if the other members were lacking, what would the joy of the eye be?
You will have joy when you depart from this life if you are a saint. But your joy will be complete only when no member of your body is lacking to you. or you too will wait, just as you are awaited. But if you, who are a member, do not have perfect joy as long as a member is missing, how much more must our Lord and Saviour, who is the head and origin of this body, consider it an incomplete joy if he is still lacking certain of his members? . . . Thus he does not want to receive his perfect glory without you: that means, not without his people which is 'his body' and 'his members'
Origen of Alexandria In Leviticum homiliae VII, 1-2.
