coronavirus

The way presidents and governments use language reflects the society they want to construct — and for the United States, presidents have long attempted to build a narrative that hides he real impacts of war and makes the United States look the part of a noble hero. Crisis and pandemics don’t start wars, and they won’t end war, but the United States may use crisis to beat the drums of war.

What faces we see, either in person or in our hearts, carries a sacred and saving significance. Those of us with the luxury of being able to shelter in place because we have adequate space, who can maintain physical distance because there’s no need to be crowded, and who can wash our hands because we never have to think about soap and hot water, can exchange post-Easter greetings in safety, probably on Zoom. We treasure those bonds with one another in a socially isolated time.

As of April 15, more than 101,000 people worldwide have died of the novel coronavirus. In the U.S., 42 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico have issued orders for people to stay in their homes to slow the spread. But with at least 1.6 million infected globally, the mortality rate has forced an increasing number of people to confront a topic they tend to otherwise avoid: death.

Easter was never meant to go back to normal; but was, and still is, intended to make all things new.

For Christians, it means the proclamation of release over suffering, hope over despair, and life over death. Still, there is no special immunity from COVID-19 granted by physically gathering to worship God.

We need to walk together, day by day, through the days of this holy weekend — in the midst of this modern plague. Here I offer my map for that journey.

Jubilee is appearing all around us amid the coronavirus pandemic.

How strange that to love our neighbor we must abstain from interacting with them in the flesh. Maintain social distance, and for the love of God, don’t go to Grandma’s house. These are all wise admonitions, but is that it? Is that the extent of what it means to love our neighbors in the age of COVID-19? Might the call to a Maundy Thursday depth of love ask a bit more of us?

Dr. Larry Brilliant, an American epidemiologist who helped eradicate smallpox in the 1970s, and Rev. Jim Wallis discuss the current administration's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Brilliant outlines the moral, ethical, and scientific responses needed to respond effectively to the coronavirus.

As the plague continued to spread with every cough, they blamed a lunar eclipse and the malignant forces of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars for deadly vapors arriving on currents of air, passing into the blood stream. They hypothesized that this “corrupted air … penetrates to the heart” and “destroys the life force.” From where else could this curse have come? A product of “divine will” they decreed, and urged the people “to return humbly to God.”