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In my previous pastorate, I lived in a small town south of Washington, D.C., that had a national cemetery. The coffee shop I frequented was less than a mile away. When I had reached my caffeine quota for the day, I would walk from the coffee shop to the cemetery and spend time among the gravestones, thinking and praying. There was undoubtedly a memento mori aspect to my strolls, but it was more than that. As I prayed, thought about my pastoral duties, and prepared for that Sunday’s sermon, I would think about what it would be like to be in that cemetery when Jesus returns, when the resurrection of the dead finally occurs. I would frequently say to myself, “This is where the party will start.” I envisioned Christians, reunited soul and body, leaping up from their graves in the praise of Christ at His triumphant return. It wasn’t speculation or a fictional dream; I knew that it would (and will) happen on that great day.
What my walks through the cemetery impressed on me is the reality and importance of the Christian doctrine of the bodily resurrection. The Bible speaks often about the bodily resurrection of all people—Christians to everlasting life and non-Christians to eternal punishment—in both the Old and New Testaments. In 1 Corinthians 15:13–17, Paul writes:
But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.
In these few short verses, Paul emphasizes the importance of the bodily resurrection. According to Paul, if you deny the bodily resurrection, you must also deny the resurrection of Christ, the effectiveness of preaching, the value of faith, the veracity of the Bible, and the reality of the forgiveness of sins through Christ. All these crucial biblical doctrines are directly and intrinsically tied to the doctrine of the bodily resurrection.
This doctrine is crucial for many aspects of Christian living. One of those aspects is the importance of what we are to do with our physical bodies, specifically whether we attend Christian worship and participate in Christian community. We are not now and will not in eternity be disembodied spirits. Our souls and our bodies uniquely make us who we are. And our participation in Christian worship and fellowship must also be embodied experiences. We must show up in person, regularly, frequently, and often. We are body and soul and were intended by God to participate in Christian worship with body and soul. This means that we must, unless providentially hindered, attend Christian worship with our bodies. Even outside Sunday worship, it is important to gather together, with our bodies, with other Christians. If we are absent or if we try to “just listen online,” we are robbing ourselves and others of the benefits that God intended for us in redeeming our souls and our bodies; we are denying the implications of the doctrine of bodily resurrection.
Yet siren songs of societal innovation are tempting us to believe otherwise. Youth sports compete with Sunday attendance, convincing some that attending church half the year is just fine. Our online lives, videoconferencing, and on-demand streaming media convince us that “tuning in” to an online broadcast of a church service (or just the sermon) is just as good as in-person attendance to partake of the means of grace. The convenience of “church in our pajamas” is a direct assault on this key Christian tenet: Our bodies are important. These seemingly trivial decisions to avoid in-person worship and fellowship with God’s people may appear to be a matter of convenience and personal preference. In reality, such decisions subvert the gravity that God places on bodily presence.
When we think that our physical absence doesn’t matter, we forget what we’re all hoping for: the glories of heaven. We all long for heaven, long for eternity with God and His church, when sin and death will be no more. God describes heaven as a place of perfect bliss. We will participate in that heavenly joy with our bodies and souls, as Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 15. If we confess that the perfection of heaven requires our participation in body and soul, then why would we not pursue that aspect of heaven on earth? Why would we avoid Christian worship and gatherings or try to participate in them without our physical presence? We were made and redeemed for eternity with God and each other, body and soul.
So we should affirm the sacredness of our bodies, not just on paper but in practice. This means that Christians prioritize the in-person attendance of God’s people in Christian worship and fellowship. We seek to know and be known, to serve and be served, to encourage and be encouraged, to pray for and be prayed for. We use the bodies that God has given us to participate bodily in the Christian community now, even as we look forward to our bodily future in the new heavens and new earth.
I enjoyed my time in the national cemetery. Praying among the dead reiterated to me important doctrines about my Christian life. But more than praying among the dead, I enjoy most worshiping among the living—in person.