Keeping Away from Church

“I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord!”” Psalm 122:1

I suppose the verse above has never been so meaningful, has it? Normally, it is not so. Normally, going to the house of the Lord is a struggle in some way. The time does not seem right. Activities must be missed. A day-off from work is used up. In other words, when thinking of worship, of obeying the Third Commandment, of “Remembering the sabbath day by keeping it holy” (Ex. 20:8), it often is done under protest, under the protest of our old man.

But now we have not been able to go to the house of the Lord. And what is the result? We are experiencing firsthand the wondrous blessing of actually being in His house. Of worshiping with other Christians. For there what happens? We hear the Word of the Lord. We “speak to one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,” (Eph. 5:19) that it, as we sing together, we proclaim to one another all of the wonders that God has done for us (Acts 2:11)! We confess our sins, receive absolution for them, and even are strengthened spiritually by our Lord Himself, as He comes to us sacramentally with His body and blood in the Lord’s Supper.

Then of course there is the fellowship. The encouraging of one another. The expressions of love and support that we both give and receive.

And there is growth. The spiritual growth. The growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (2 Pet. 3:18) through the study of His Word.

So since this is so, since going to the house of the Lord is such a wonderful experience, why are we not doing so? Why don’t we continue to do that which is so beneficial to us, in spite of the current pandemic?

Well the answer is love, isn’t it? It is out love for our neighbor that we have suspended worship services and all other in-person activities here at the church. It is as simple as that. We don’t want our neighbors to die because of anything that we have done. We are not, after all, “to hurt our harm our neighbor in his body, but help and support him in every physical need,” as we all learned from the Small Catechism in confirmation class. That is Luther’s explanation of the fifth commandment, “You shall not murder,” (Ex. 20:13) and also a nice explanation of what our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ taught us: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev. 19:9).

If we can help to prevent or even slow down the spread of COVID-19, we are loving our neighbor. Sure, it could be that we ourselves become infected, and suffer a few symptoms, and that is all. But that is not the point. The point is that if we spread the virus, and all those around us do, we could infect those who would be threatened by death, and overwhelm the health care system by the shear number of cases with which they are faced. They would not, then, be able to treat them all.

But it is not that we cannot continue to hear the Word of God. We can by means of the worship services here that are being live-streamed, and simply by means of our own Bibles. The Word of God is powerful in whatever form it comes to us, whether at church, or at home.

So until we are able once again rejoice, as we go to the house of the Lord, I would encourage you all to “let the Word of Christ, dwell in you richly” (Col. 3:16), through Your home study of the Scriptures and devotions.