Here O My Lord I See Thee Face to Face

This is a guest post from my husband, Brian. Brian works casual call as a nurse and does the majority of the work involved in taking care of our land and animals. In his free time, Brian enjoys planting trees, building things (like this incredible chicken coop), and singing hymns. We’ve been married for 14 years, and I’m happy to call him my husband.

***

Here, O my Lord, I see thee face to face;
Here would I touch and handle things unseen,
Here grasp with firmer hand th’eternal grace,
And all my weariness upon thee lean.

For the second week in a row I’ve chosen a hymn written by Horatius Bonar. And once again, I’ve chosen a communion hymn, although I won’t focus too much on that aspect of the song. When I hear this hymn, I think of the worship service as a whole, not just the Lord’s Supper. I see Jesus every Sunday morning when our church gathers together to worship our Triune God. He is present in the preaching of the word, in the prayers, in the singing, and in the administration of the sacraments. And through it all, week by week, I really can more firmly grasp God’s eternal grace.

I looked this hymn up in two different hymnals; one had it in the communion section, and one had it in the section on the Church. I really love the way this hymn works both ways. We see Jesus more clearly wherever his people meet. And we see him more clearly in the Lord’s Supper.

You probably learned about the five senses sometime around preschool (I just asked my five year old; she can name them). This hymn clearly and beautifully touches on some of the senses that we don’t often associate with the worship of God. He gave us five senses, and we can use them all to perceive him more clearly. We can hold the bread in our hands, taste the wine as we drink, and know that these will nourish our bodies as the Spirit of God will nourish our souls. The second verse describes it this way, “here taste afresh the calm of sin forgiven”. What a wonderful way to describe the spiritual food and drink we are offered when we remember Christ’s death and resurrection every week, both in the Supper and the church service as a whole.

I want to be at church every week. For a while, I didn’t really know why. Sometimes it seems long, repetitive, or even boring. But this hymn helped me to put into words why I need to be there every week. “Here let me feast, and, feasting still prolong the brief, bright hour of fellowship with thee.” Let us savor the time we spend in the Lord’s house, and more and more spend it in sweet fellowship with God and the other saints gathered there.

—

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.
Revelation 22:1-4