Bethel—Beth El—in Hebrew “beth” means house, and “el” is a word for God, so Jacob called the place of God’s revelation to him Bethel. So full of awe on awakening from his dream, he proclaimed, “This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” An unlikely place to be sure, in the open countryside with a stone for a pillow—an unlikely time for a fugitive escaping form those whom he had betrayed, yet that is the way God often comes into our lives. Unexpected, surprising, Emmanuel (God with us) makes his presence known to us—just when we need him most.

When I was a child, we had a big, old Bible storybook with vivid pictures illustrating each of the various stories. I think it may have been my mother’s or maybe my grandmother’s. The artist’s rendering for Jacob’s dream showed an awesome God standing at the top of the ladder, depicting the scene as the King James Version of the Bible puts it: “the Lord stood above it.” That image stayed with me for years until one day I realized I was reading something different in my modern translation: “the Lord stood beside him.” Beside him, not the artist’s distant, transcendent Holy One, but the imminent Emmanuel, present here and now. The place of God’s revelation to each of us, whenever we perceive it, however it may come, wherever our epiphany takes place is Bethel; it is holy ground.

Today, my understanding of Bethel also includes Paul’s statement to the church in Corinth, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you?” (I Cor.6:19) Not only is the Lord transcendent, not only does the Lord walk beside us, the Lord dwells within us, deep within our hearts, “leading [us] in the way that is everlasting.” It seems that our psalmist may have been trying to put that into words when he says in essence, “Wherever I go, you, Lord, are there.” Emmanuel! Bethel!