How This Pandemic Helps Us Understand Easter
Many people think of Easter as an unremarkable, vaguely religious holiday. We all go through the motions, see advertisements about chocolate rabbits and egg decorations, and then move on to Monday without much thought.
But this year, we don’t see the same advertisements. Retail and consumption expenditures have declined sharply even after accounting for online purchases. Streets and coffee shops are empty and people are staying indoors as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
When our situation changes, we become attuned to our surroundings in a way that is not likely during typical monotony. Could it be that Jesus wants us to understand an old lesson in a new light this year?
With sickness and death on everyone's minds and the coronavirus affecting far too many people, let us pause to understand the suffering and death that Jesus endured and the gift of eternal life that he promises.
Easter is essential for the Christian faith; without it, Christianity cannot exist. Perhaps the most widely cited verse in the Gospels, John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” And that’s exactly what Jesus did: he paid the price of death and emerged victorious so that we could be forever reconciled with our Creator.
Do we really understand the gravity of what was accomplished here? If you saw someone humiliated, put to death in the worst way possible, and then raised to life all out of a passionate and unconditional love for you, would you just go back to normal? Or would it completely change your life?
This upcoming Easter is perhaps the most unique one we’ve had since Jesus was crucified. All his disciples were inside hiding, much like most of us in the United States and world are social distancing within the confines of our homes so that we do not contribute to the spread of COVID-19. But one night, Good Friday, that began with unspeakable fear and uncertainty on the part of Jesus’ disciples gave way to the most incredible miracle the world has ever seen: the risen and victorious Christ who reinvigorated the disciples and jumpstarted a cross-cultural, inter-generational, multi-ethnic church that has stood the test of time and remains committed to being the light that He has called it to be.
Jesus confronts us with a choice: we either believe that He is the Son of God or we call him a liar (or a lunatic). And I believe that he was telling the truth manifested by his resurrection from death to life. That means nothing else can alter the fundamental truth about who Jesus is and what He came to do.
The tragedy we have witnessed over the past few months around the world should cause us to ask deeper questions about who we are and where we are going. Matter is not all that exists. There is a Creator who designed you, knows you, and has plans for you to flourish and enter into a relationship with him. And he paid the ultimate price roughly 2000 years ago for you to have that opportunity.
This Easter is different and its challenges are new. Don’t let it go by without at least stopping and evaluating your worldview. We might be feeling trapped inside just like the disciples, but Jesus has come to give life and to give it abundantly, even in the midst of trials and suffering.
Christos A. Makridis (Ph.D., Stanford University) serves as an Assistant Research Professor at Arizona State University, a Digital Fellow at the MIT Sloan Initiative on the Digital Economy, a Non-resident fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government Cyber Security Initiative, a Non-resident fellow at the Baylor University Institute for Studies of Religion, and a Senior Adviser to Gallup.
