Immanuel

We want to get close so we can understand. Being present at what’s happening gives us a better feel for it than hearing someone’s report or seeing it on television.

As to convictions, we believe that God knows and understands our human situation, but in our sense of things we long for “Immanuel.” Among several things, God’s nearness helps us feel that he does, in fact, “understand our frame” (Psalm 103:14). Without thinking, we project onto him the limitation of our own viewpoint—knowing better but not feeling that way.

That’s why God graced us with his tangible presence, one we associate with the birth in Bethlehem but one more vividly evident in the death at Jerusalem. Here is an Immanuel where deity feels the worst of human experience, not to learn but to teach. Herein we feel confident that God understands what it’s like to be human and to experience the full range of our situation.

This bread represents what bore the marks of spike-pierced hands; this wine pictures the blood from Immanuel’s veins. By this observance we sharpen our awareness of God’s awareness of all we experience and endure.