April 12, 2020
Today is Easter. This is the day for Christians throughout the West to celebrate the glorious resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is risen. He is risen indeed! We may be absent in body but we are present together in the worship the King of kings and Lord of lords.
Life during a time of a global pandemic has certainly generated a new normal, if only for a season. Worldwide confirmed cases COVID-19 infections are nearing two million. The virus has caused over 100,000 deaths worldwide with over 20,000 occurring in the United States. Where I live in the Charlotte metropolitan area of North Carolina social distancing, temporary business closures, and stay at home orders are part of the game plan to reduce the spread of the virus. These extenuating circumstances have also moved many larger church congregations in the area to temporarily offer services, small groups, and Bible studies via online connections.1
We have all been troubled these days past with worries and uncertainties. There are those who have been out of work and wondering how will they make ends meet. There are those yearning for things to get back to the way they used to be. There are those in fear for themselves and their loved ones of contracting the infection. There are those who are struggling with an infection. There are those mourning the loss of a loved one who died on account of the infection. We are in a very volatile circumstance wherein things can change for the worst very quickly.
If there is any hope that can be had in these perilous times, that hope is ultimately found in the Easter message. Easter is the Christian commemoration of God’s decisive victory over the power of sin and darkness through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is the central event of God’s unfolding plan of redemption. Christ’s resurrection that offers fallen people a hope and a future. Christ died upon the cross and rose again on the third day (1 Cor. 15:3-8). He gives His life as a ransom to save sinners (Mk. 10:45; 1 Tim. 2:6-7). His death makes atonement for sin and sets things right between God and sinners (Rom. 3:21-26; 1 Jn. 2:1-2; 4:10-11). Moreover, just as Christ rose from the grave, when the Lord appears a second time, Christ followers will be raised to everlasting life (Jn. 5:28-29; 1 Cor. 15:50-57; 1 Thess. 4:16-17).
Christianity’s future hope is moreover intricately woven together with the call to make a difference in the present. Christ taught His disciples to be the “the salt of the earth” (Matt. 5:13)2 and “the light of the world” (Matt. 5:14). The Lord also taught that the righteous who inherit the kingdom of God are the kind of people that feed the hungry, give drinks to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothed the naked, care for the sick, and visit the imprisoned. Moreover, there is solidarity between the Son of Man and the least, lost and lowly of the world. An act of kindness to the least, lost and lowly is the same as an act of kindness to the Son of Man. But those who lacked compassion to the least, lost and lowly of the world are without a place in the kingdom of God (Matt. 25:31-46). The true neighbor, like the Good Samaritan, tends to the wounds of the victim who had been robbed and left to die on the side of the road, even when the victim is from a different tribe or clique (Luke 10:34).
Paul, likewise, encouraged Christians to “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Phil. 2:3-4). The supreme example of this altruism, the apostle taught, is Jesus Christ, “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:6-10).
Christians took these teachings to heart. In the third century, for example, a plague spread over Ethiopia, Rome, Greece and Syria, lasting around two decades. It is reported that in Rome at one point as many as 5000 people died per-day. It was most notably the Church that took the initiative to care for the sick and bury the dead.3 Dionysus of Alexandria, an eyewitness to that pandemic, wrote, “Most of our brethren were unsparing in their exceeding love and brotherly kindness. They held fast to each other and visited the sick fearlessly, and ministered to them continually, serving them in Christ And they died with them most joyfully, taking the affliction of others, and drawing the sickness from their neighbors to themselves, and willingly receiving their pains” (Ecclesiastical History, 7.22.7).4
Religious tolerance extended to the Christian Church after Emperor Constantine’s Edict of Milan in AD 313. This opened doors for believers to care for the sick and dying in ways they never could have done before. For example, St. Basil of Caesarea established the first hospital in Cappadocia around AD 369.5 The same Christ-like impulse to care for the sick and dying contributed to the establishing of three of the oldest hospitals in the United States: Pennsylvania Hospital founded in 1751 by Quaker Christian Dr. Thomas Bond and Benjamin Franklin, New York Presbyterian Hospital founded in 1771 by Episcopal Christian Samuel Bard, and Massachusetts General Hospital founded in 1811 by Rev. John Bartlett. Without any doubt “the seeds that produced the modern hospital and modern medicine were planted by devout Christians who were motivated by their sincere Christian beliefs,” and “many of the best-ranked hospitals today were founded by Christian pastors, ministers, nuns, doctors, or priests as houses of charity.”6 These Christians were led by the Spirit of Christ to care for the sick and dying, and they essentially planted the seeds for the establishment of the very modern hospitals we are all so dependent upon in the present.
Today we celebrate the resurrection of Christ. This resurrection offers us hope of everlasting life. It is the epicenter of life transformation. Christ died upon the cross for sinners, and He rose again on the third day, so that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life. Those who have hope of future resurrection can put off their old ways and walk in newness of life.
Many fellow Christians have been called by the Lord into a heath care profession. Their ministry is most needed today, they are carrying out a sacred duty in caring for the sick and dying, and they are to be highly commended. They are worthy of the highest honors. But, the Triune God of the universe gifts the Church in a diversity of ways. Some of us have been abundantly blessed with seasons of plenty, and they are able to give alms in to those in need during this season of lean. Even if the only mite one can offer is to be selflessly vigilant about maintaining cleanliness and social distancing to reduce the spread of this highly contagious infection even this is something honorable to Christ.
Do not despair in these perilous times. God knows each person’s circumstances, as He knows the very number of hairs upon each person’s head. Above all, let us all pray for God’s mercy.
— WGN
Christ the Lord is ris’n today, Alleluia!
Sons of men and angels say, Alleluia!
Raise your joys and triumphs high, Alleluia!
Sing ye heav’ns, and earth reply, Alleluia!
- Streaming services have been happening since the early 2000s, but present circumstances have made this a new norm for doing corporate worship. This is, in my humble opinion, a wise yet unwelcomed way of coming together for Christian worship. I have always been reticent about considering a streaming church service a worthwhile option. Honestly, I still do not. There is much value and need for embodied social interactions, especially for Christians. See Douglas Groothuis, “Understanding Social Media,” Christian Research Institute, 33, 3 [2010]: https://www.equip.org/articles/understanding-social-media/ Nevertheless, the need for social distancing in the present COVID-19 pandemic makes streaming church services a wise temporary alternative.
- All Scripture cited from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016) unless noted.
- John Horgan, “Plague of Cyprian, 250-270 CE” https://www.ancient.eu/article/992/plague-of-cyprian-250-270-ce/ Suspects of the plague include: bubonic plague, typhus, cholera, smallpox, Ebola or a combination of acute bacillary dysentery (ibid).
- All citations from Ecclesiastical History from Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, trans. Arthur Cushman McGiffert, vol. 1 (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1890).
- Alvin J. Schmidt, How Christianity Changed the World (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2001, 2004), 156.
- John S. Dickerson, “Christianity and the Origins of Hospitals and Modern Medicine,” Christian Research Journal, 42, 3-4 [2019]: 72.
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