One flesh
We have called worship a kind of a tryst between Jesus and his bride, and have identified it as a covenant renewal, which is really a highfalutin way of saying the same thing. We as the church do not live in just any old covenant with Jesus, but a marriage covenant:
“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. (Eph. 5:31-32)
Luke Welch observes that human marriage-covenants have two primary covenantal motions in them: the wedding that establishes the marriage, and one-flesh sexual relations that “renew” it. He goes on to make the powerful point that in Jesus’s covenant with his bride, there are two analogous motions to our earthly marriages: Jesus’s death-resurrection-ascension that establishes the covenant (together with our baptism that brings us into it as individuals), and the continued communion that the church enjoys with Jesus at his table to renew this covenant. This communion is even a kind of one-flesh relationship, where the church-body consumes Jesus’s body (and is herself consumed by Jesus; Rev. 3:16).
Thus, weekly communion; because is it even necessary to ask how often a husband and wife should get together? Do not deprive one another (1 Cor. 7:5) or neglect to meet (Heb. 10:25).
I gotta have my orange juice. 
Picture source: http://www.europeana.eu/portal/record/9200387/BibliographicResource_3000113647016.html
Scott Moonen
January 8, 2016 at 9:05 pm
[…] Worship is in fact the renewal of a marriage covenant, and is it even necessary to ask how often a husband and wife should get together? […]
Weekly communion | I gotta have my orange juice.
January 9, 2016 at 10:13 pm