On the sixth day of creation, after calling His creation “good” exactly seven times, suddenly God said, “It is NOT good that man should be alone” (Genesis 2:18). This must have sounded like a rifle shot in the world so newly made. That all things could be sinless and pure but not yet “good,” is a point to ponder.
It points us to the nature of mankind. Psychologists call us “social beings.” Political philosophers call us “political beings.” At the root of it all, God made us family beings. “God sets the solitary in families” (Psalm 68:6).
By the very fact of our birth, we are related to everyone on the planet. Everybody that you have ever met is “family” by some degree of consanguinity. So, how can there be any “solitary” people? And why must God set them in families?
Of course, you know why there are solitary people. Sin makes people solitary. It breaks relationships and alienates us from others. Whether we are struggling to forgive those who have sinned against us, or we are trying to make up with those against whom we have sinned, loneliness cuts us to the core.
That’s why the ultimate—and only enduring—family is “the household of God” (Ephesians 2:19). Only through the blood atonement of Jesus on the cross does God reunite those who are estranged. Only in Christ’s free and full forgiveness can the solitary live as family again. And, what a great blessing that is!
This reunited household of God is the Holy Church. The church is not a building of wood and stone. Church is not a ceremonial ritual. The church is not even an organization headquartered in some worldly city—be it Rome, Salt Lake, or St. Louis.
Church is the family of the forgiven and thus, the family of the forgiving. And the main feature of a family is that it gathers together. Households eat meals together and hang out together. Extended families gather for Thanksgiving and Christmas. They have backyard barbeques and picnics on the lake.
They travel great distances, spend significant amounts of money, and set aside blocks of time on the calendar just to be present with each other face to face and arm in arm. For a year or so, we tried to substitute “virtual family gatherings.” But as soon as the inhuman restrictions were lifted, we got back to the real McCoy.
The lessons we learned in our blood families are even more true for the Church. The family of God which is in Christ Jesus is all about bodily gatherings. Church goes far beyond personal Bible reading. It is far more than Sunday school lessons, or an academic course in theology. While we gather around Bible readings, sermons, and prayers, these things done in solitary isolation miss the main point.
The main point is meeting together. The Holy Scriptures plainly exhort us: “Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (Hebrews 10:24-25). This is what the Church does because this is what families do.
When we were deprived of the ability to gather, we came to know its great value by feeling its great loss. Through sickness and deprivation, God has graciously helped us to remember the reason for Church.
Armed with renewed fervor, let us not merely return to pre-pandemic activities. Let us double and triple our opportunities to be together as the family of God in Christ Jesus. For this we were created, and for this we were restored.