Emmanuel – God is with us – But how?
Our Lord Jesus Christ is also called Emmanuel (or:
Immanuel), which in English means God-with-us. He promised that “where two or
three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” But does this mean that
he is not with us when we are on our own? And does his real presence in the
Eucharist mean that he is really absent when we do not celebrate the Eucharist?
God is omnipresent. The Scriptures testify to this, logic demands it based on what
God has revealed about who he is, and our tradition unequivocally affirms it.
But while God is everywhere, He has chosen to dwell among his people. While God
is everywhere present, He can be said to depart and to be absent. Thus, in Ezekiel
10–11 we read a dramatic account of the glory of the Lord leaving the temple and the city of Jerusalem. How does
this work?
God is omnipresent in the sense that everyone and
everything in all of creation is always present to him – nothing escapes
His notice; none can flee from His presence (cf. Psalm 139). But while everyone
is present to Him, He is not always present to everyone in the sense of being
accessible to everyone. For God to withdraw Himself means that God withdraws
His accessibility. It is a horrifying prospect to contemplate.
God is perfectly good and cannot tolerate evil in His
presence. Evil therefore drives Him away in the sense of making Him
inaccessible. The apostle Paul observes with words from Psalm 14 that we have
all turned aside from God (Romans 3:12). And we do not have the ability to turn
back to Him. But God has turned to us. In Christ He came to dwell among us,
dealing with the sin that separates us from Him on the cross. God is present
everywhere but in Christ He is present to us in all his favour and compassion.
And Christ promised His disciples to be with them
always, to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20), not of course in the form of his
risen and ascended body but through the Spirit He poured on His people on the
day of Pentecost.
Christ has given the Holy Spirit to each one who puts
their trust in him. He is therefore always present with a Christian, even when
that Christian is on his or her own.
So why did Jesus say, “where two or three are gathered
in my name, I am there among them.” (Matthew 18:20)? First, note that this is
the conclusion to a debate that begins with a question the disciples had put to
Jesus: “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” (verse 1) He answers by
calling a child and speaking about being humble. He says, “Whoever welcomes one
such child in my name welcomes me.” (verse 5). In other words, we can welcome Christ
in welcoming (even) the humblest (apparently most insignificant) of people.
Jesus continues this by warning about the seriousness
of creating a stumbling-block for such little ones, or despising them. He speaks
of the need to deal with offences committed within the church, if at all possible,
in a way that leads to reconciliation, although, if an offender refuses to
listen to the church, exclusion is required. Such a decision cannot be made by
an individual. It is in this connection that Jesus speaks of binding and
loosing (verse 18, retaining guilt or absolving) and promises that His Father will
honour such an agreement, before adding “For where two or three are gathered in
my name, I am there among them.”
In other words, Jesus speaks into a situation in
which two or three witnesses are required to confront and convict a church
member of their sin and affirms that in this process He is with His people. It
is not a matter of Christ being more present when two or three are
gathered in His name but of Him being present in a specific process.
This may help us, as we reflect on Christ’s presence
when we gather to celebrate the Eucharist. Trusting His promise, we do believe
that Christ is present with us, as we gather to worship Him, even if we do not
celebrate the Eucharist. And because Christ’s presence cannot be divided into
bits and pieces, it would be wrong to say that He is more present
when we celebrate the Eucharist. But we may want to say that He is present in a
different mode.
Christ is present to us in the Eucharist as a host who
gives us to eat and drink. The apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians speaks of
partaking of “the table of the Lord” and calls the cup that we drink “the cup
of the Lord” (chapter 10). He speaks of Holy Communion as “the Lord’s Supper”
(chapter 11). Thus, it is clear that Christ meets us here as the host, giving
us bread to eat and wine to drink. But as our mouth receives bread and wine, we
share in more than bread and wine.
“The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing
in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the
body of Christ?” (1 Corinthians 10:16) In the Eucharist Christ provides us with
a sensible connection to Calvary in that we can taste and feel that He brought
His body as a sacrifice and shed His blood for us on the cross and “as often as
you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he
comes.” (1 Corinthians 11:26).
And we are also made sensible of the fact that the “us”
for whom Christ’s blood was shed is a body. “Because there is one bread, we who
are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.” (1 Corinthians
10:17). It is not possible to celebrate Holy Communion on one’s own. Just as
church discipline requires at least two or three to be gathered in agreement,
so does the Eucharist.
Much more could be said about the contexts in which it
is proper or improper to celebrate the Eucharist. Sufficient to say here that
the Church of England requires an ordained presbyter/priest to preside at Holy
Communion. This is to safeguard that the gathering is really of the body of
Christ rather than a splinter group.
What does this mean in our current situation? It means
that there is a mode of Christ’s presence which we cannot experience, unless we
meet together eating and drinking at the Eucharist. We should desire and pray
for this to become possible for all of us. But when we gather for services
without the Eucharist, we still gather as the body of Christ and Christ is
present to us in a different mode from when we pray on our own. There is a
special blessing on Christ’s presence as his body; we should not neglect
meeting together (Hebrews 10:25).
Alone, I am member of the body of Christ. I am not the
body. For the body of Christ to come together, it does not need all Christians
to be in the same place at the same time. But as far as possible, we are to
meet with Christians in our neighbourhood.
What about Zoom? There is much that is lacking when we
meet via Zoom, not least the Eucharist. But we have experienced real fellowship
over recent months and we are able to do something together as the body of
Christ, with some people reading, others leading us in prayers, others leading
us in singing, the children sharing their art work. Surely Christ continues to
be present not only with each one of us individually but in the manner of his body,
as we meet virtually.
