I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people; to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you; you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.
Luke 2:10-12, New Revised Standard Version

Photo of church Several years ago, I was sitting in the choir loft and praying, as our congregation was beginning it’s usual celebration of the Lord’s Supper or Eucharist. In our church, members follow behind each other and move forward to tear a piece of bread from the common loaf (held by the pastor). Then we dip that piece in either the cup of wine or the cup of juice, eat the moistened bread and return to our seats.

I was already in this half-dreamy state from prayer when I followed the other choir members and walked over to the communion table. As I was drifting toward “my turn” a flash of white caught my attention. I glanced over immediately to the plate where the loaf of bread had been resting. In the exact place where the bread had been, I could see a faint picture of the lower half of a baby, with a cloth diaper. I could even see the little legs and feet. Then the image disappeared and left as quickly as it came. It was as if I had been in a photographer’s “dark room” and was watching an image from film appear on the photographic paper. There was that same sense of mystery and magic; a breath-catching moment.

What I had just “seen” was a vision of what Catholic Christians understand about the tradition of the Eucharist, or Lord’s Supper. However, I am not a Roman Catholic Christian. I am Presbyterian, of the USA variety. Our denomination understands and teaches that the celebration of the Lord’s Supper to be symbolic rather than a literal changing of the bread and wine to the body and blood of Christ.

Regardless of faith tradition, I saw what I saw. It was not a hallucination. That is where one actually “acts as if” what one sees is real. If one “sees” pink elephants and runs and hides from them, then that is a hallucination. But I knew in that split-second that the fleeting vision of that infant-in-swaddling was exactly that, a vision. I was overwhelmed, awed, and humbled-with-gratitude at such an experience. It forever changed my understanding of the Lord’s Supper and ancient/traditional Christian practices which carry the soul of the faith in holy, sacred, and symbolic containers of revelation.

I look back on this experience and interpret it as if it were a dream, like layers of an onion to be peeled away and reflecting another truth. Whether the “infant” had to do with the Lord’s Supper, current and future life; old age, birth of a grandchild, or the “soft-spot” of my heart, the vision was most truly a sign for my soul where scripture and story became one. I did indeed find the child “wrapped in bands of cloth,” God-with-us, Emmanuel, not in the manger, but waiting to become part of the church, the “body of Christ.”

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