Corona Easter

The coronavirus pandemic is very depressing.  Not only because it infects and kills so many, threatening practically everybody in every country in the world.  But also because it exposes so much ugliness in the world.  The fear and the panic are understandable human instincts.  But the consequent hoarding, fighting for resources, profiteering from shortage of materials, hiding of inconvenient truth, mean spirited accusations of culpability, turning against foreigners, intentional spread of rumours, false claims of credits, use of the suffering to hurt, self-centerness, using the human suffering to make political gain, …, and so much more, are so much more depressing.  

In the middle of this pandemic, Good Friday and Easter arrive.  Many very smart and well-learned people may feel that there is no God.  Many don’t even believe in the soul, or anything spiritual for that matter.  Not even free will.  Some believe that all human thoughts and emotions are results of electrical and chemical activities in the brain, and hence deterministic.  Hence there is no free will.  The fact that we do not know how our thoughts come about does not mean we are free.  All religious beliefs, spiritual matters, and ultimately, God, are created by man.  If this is true, it is doubly, triply depressing.  We live in an ugly would with so much evil, and there is no way out.  

I have been looking for answers in practically all the major religions in the world.  I have come to the conclusion that there has to be an answer.  I refuse to believe that we live in a world that is devoid of meaning, that there is no way to escape from the ugliness, injustice, and evil.  Such pervasiveness and depth of evil have to be redeemed by a supreme act of heroic sacrifice - one such as performed by Jesus Christ by dying on the cross on Good Friday.  

And if there is to be any hope in the world, it has to come from a supreme act of power - one such as performed by God in resurrecting Jesus Christ from the dead on Easter.     

It is impossible to prove that the death and resurrection of Jesus, as well as the other elements of the Christianity story, are historically factual or actually more allegorical or somewhere in between. But there is enough evidence that something miraculous has happened.  Not the least is the amazing history of the Jewish people.  They have managed to not only survive as a people with a distinctive culture and faith, but, completely against expectations, to rebuild their country after having lost it for almost two thousand years.   Then there are these early Christians. Having witnessed the humiliating and agonising death of Jesus Christ, they managed not only to retain their faith in Him, but to preach the Gospel even more fervently and defiantly, ending up converting the Roman Empire and beyond.  The more the faith is persecuted, the more it seems to gain in strength and purity.  When it is powerful and prosperous, it actually corrupts.  The message itself is counter-intuitive enough.  “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. ..”  Who would have thought that these are the truth?

So it actually seems apt that Good Friday and Easter arrive in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.  There is much ugliness, injustice and evil in the world.  But there is goodness, love and hope in Christ Jesus.

The question for us is: What is our response?  How then should be then behave?