Theological Journal - March 27: Let;s Celebrate Communion Digitally - NOT!
The move to digital communication as a surrogate for the gathered fellowship and worship we cannot and ought not share at present is very appropriate under the circumstances. But it is only a surrogate. If it were an adequate form of the community’s worship, then why don’t we do it all the time? But there is something in our bodily, gathered community that alone reflects what God wants for us as we wait for his kingdom to come in its fullness (which will be intensification or even more real experience of our bodiliness). After all, it was God’s dream to take on a body too so he could be one with us in our bodiliness. We don’t become more “spiritual” (that is, less bodily, immaterial) to be more like God, it’s the other way around. And God in bodily form, present in the bread and wine of communion, is the center of Christian life and worship. And it’s as one body, his body, that we gather, and his one body that is broken and his blood shed that he shares his life with ...