This Easter Is the First Communion Of the Virtual World
Everything is always holy.
For millions of Christians, this years’ season of Lent has been filled with unique worry and wonder: worry that Easter would end up being cancelled, like so many other events during the pandemic COVID-19, including Easter brunch, of course; and wonder at the ways believers have found to be religious together in spite of it all, in virtual spaces of liminal hope.
And it’s not just Easter that’s in play, either — Passover seders and Ramadan observances are being zoomed, or live-streamed, or shown on local access cable channels. Religious gatherings now abound in the virtual world — but we are more bereft than ever in the physical world, where we distance ourselves daily, and communities no longer feel the same. Because nothing is the same.
Christians are already self-consciously preparing bread and wine to use for home communion on Sunday, when they’ll get to choose to attend Easter services from sources ranging from the Pope to Kanye to some Mega Power Hour Church to the First Church of the Mainline to their beloved Ye Old Holy — because even the least of these have gamely trudged up that…
