Celebrating the Lords Supper Amidst COVID-19

Online Communion Services?

Donald MacLeod

A couple of days ago, a distinguished colleague ran past me a question which someone had put to him.  Now that the church is delivering just about everything online, should we also have online Communion Services?

 I must admit that I found the idea deeply disturbing, not merely because it presents yet another danger of rushing into an innovation without due theological reflection, but because it  smacks of an exaggerated view of the importance of the Sacrament: the view prevalent in Roman Catholic, Anglo-Catholic, and Scoto-Catholic circles, in which the Eucharist is the primary means of grace, and its weekly (or even daily) ministration vital to a believer’s spiritual growth.

 Such a point of view can hardly claim the support of the New Testament, where there is a remarkable paucity of references to the Lord’s Supper.  Nor is it in line with the priorities of historic Protestantism.  A famine of the Word of God would certainly be calamitous but, taking the history of the church overall, a 6-month hiatus in the ministration of the Lord’s Supper would not be at all unusual; indeed, in many Scottish congregations it was the norm until very recently; and that is before we even begin to think of the  chronically-housebound who, in most churches, might have to go years without the Sacrament.  Neither of these situations was ideal, but they may help us put the current disruptions in perspective.

 The Lord’s Supper is not a sacrament on which we are free to innovate at will.  We have a clear and authoritative norm: the accounts of the Last Supper handed down not only by all three gospels, but also by St Paul (the earliest account).  Among the relevant considerations highlighted by these accounts are the following:


1.            The most obvious feature of the Last Supper is that it was a shared meal; and those who shared it were not present only ‘in spirit,’ far less only virtually.