What Does Easter Offer to a Global Pandemic?

Tragedy touches a little family unit.[1]

Martha and Mary nurse their brother as best they can. But – the sickness worsens. They keep him home, in bed, safe. They sit, sleepy and anxious through his fever filled nights. Lazarus passes away as the sun rises one beautiful morning.

Martha dutifully makes the burial arrangements…pushing her grief and heartbreak to the side. But a sadness settles over them both, threatening to engulf them. Mary spends her days quietly now, sitting alone.

Friends visit offering condolences, but no help. One particular group of friends are returning home when they see a familiar face approaching on the road. His entourage walks with him. “Quick – someone needs to run back to Mary and Martha. Tell them Jesus is on his way.” The group walks past, and they nod politely. Yet at a safe distance, they shake their heads. “What a tragedy. He’s too late. If only he had come a few days ago, Lazarus might not have died.”

At the sound of his name, Martha puts her cooking utensils down, and slips on her sandals. “Mary – I’m going out. I hear Jesus is in the area. Do you want to come?” Silence. Martha leaves, her pace slow at first but the frustration and the questions building in her mind cause her walk to become a run. “Why couldn’t he have been here days ago? We sent word to him that Lazarus was ill. Don’t we matter to him? Is his public ministry that important?” Before long she is staring Jesus in the face, venting the frustration that had been building for days. Yet it wasn’t just frustration. Because at the sight of her friend, anything seemed possible.

“If only you had been here when we were nursing Lazarus. We buried him days ago now. What can you do Jesus? Can you help Mary and I? Mary just seems to have shut down…she’s not talking to me…”

Jesus speaks. “Your brother will rise again.” Martha stops – and her face grimaces in confusion.

 

Mary has joined Martha now. The grief and the heartbreak on her face, and in her voice, touches Jesus deeply. “Mary…Martha…show me where you laid him,” he asks.

As they approach the tomb, the waves of grief swell and finally, Mary and Martha began to weep openly. Through their tears they see the face of their friend Jesus. He too is weeping.

 

 

Is there Hope and Life in the Midst of Death?

Easter is about the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth, and the subsequent reports of his resurrection from the dead. Yet this year, 2020, Easter is also about a global pandemic which is claiming the lives of thousands of people every day. Does Easter bring any words of hope in the midst of death?

I think it does. And we see the hope of Easter playing out in this very timely story of Mary and Martha’s tragedy. The untimely death of a loved one. An event happening countless times each day today around the world.

Incredibly – there is hope – and life – in the midst of death.

 

 

What is the Hope?

In this incident we see three things:

First – Jesus enters into his friends grief.

If you want to know where God is in the midst of a global pandemic, then the answer is – he is in the room with every family who are wailing at the loss of the family member they could not comfort, hug or even say goodbye to.

“God, if you’re real, why didn’t you save my mum, dad, brother, sister, friend?” We give voice to Martha’s frustrated words. “If you’re there, God, then why didn’t you do something?”

God shares in this grief and this pain. Jesus weeps.

 

Second – Jesus doesn’t explain or excuse their suffering.

In Mary and Martha’s case, he does not patronise his grieving friends by attempting to give trite or easy answers. He doesn’t say things to avoid coming close to their grief. Quite the opposite. He speaks little and shares deeply in its reality.

Ultimately – no answer is going to satisfy us when we are railing against the death of those we love so dearly. It just isn’t. But maybe it’s not actually intellectual ideas we are actually looking for. Perhaps, rather, it’s an answer to the question, “Do we go on? Will I see them again? Will everything be alright?”

 

Third – Jesus himself is their hope in their tragedy.

Before Mary had arrived to join Martha with Jesus, Martha had been wrestling with the idea that one day Lazarus would rise again from the dead. And Jesus spoke to her in very simple terms. He said:

“I am the resurrection and the life.”

It’s not fancy sounding arguments that win the day. Its ultimately not even soothing words of comfort. It’s Jesus himself. Here with us. This little family could find their hope and their future in him. Why? Because he embodies life – he is the creator and sustainer of all life. What a miracle it is that people exist, living, feeling, thinking, wilful people like us. We’re not just biological machines, we are so much more. Jesus’ creative purpose is seen in and through each of us.

But on that particular day – Jesus wasn’t just the life, he was actually giving life to the brother they had lost. And so as Jesus speaks the words to the empty tomb, “Lazarus, come out,” these aren’t the words of a madman or the raw guilt of a friend who missed the funeral. These are the words of the one who gives life to every breathing thing on this planet, who creates and sustains each human being. And as Lazarus tentatively emerges from the tomb, and his sisters unwrap and embrace their brother again…we see nothing more amazing than Jesus doing what Jesus does. He gives and sustains lives.

 

Time passes, and it is the Jewish Passover. But this day, it is Jesus who is breathing his last. Scourged to within an inch of his life, nailed and crucified by Roman soldiers to finish the job. His body removed from the cross and laid in a borrowed tomb. And yet it’s here we see the truth that the earlier Lazarus incident had only hinted at.

Jesus had said, “I am the resurrection and the life.” Now he shows it again.

His tomb is empty. Jesus is alive, and we do go on. For everyone who chooses to go with him, we will be alright.

 

 

Poem By Sue McGee

The tragedy struck on Friday

So many were traumatised

The cross, he warned, was coming.

But they couldn’t believe their eyes.

 

The Lord full of compassion

Who fed their hungry hearts

Who healed their sick and raised their dead

Was now being torn apart.

 

Tortured and mocked before them

Then nailed to a wooden cross

He carried the burden of all sins

But for them… all was lost.

 

How could it ever be “normal” again?

Where do they even begin?

After heartbreaking trauma on such a huge scale…

Could Hope find a way back in?

 

But God…in His infinite Mercy

Amidst their doubts and pain

Provided the ultimate miracle

On the third day He rose again!

 

Up from the grave of suffering

Out of the tomb of despair

Jesus appeared and Hope was restored

He defeated death then and there!

 

Now here we are in 2020

Covid-19 banging down our door

A thief, a destroyer, a menacing threat

Can we return to “normal” once more???

 

The whole world going through the same trauma,

Our eyes all see the same pain.

Together we unite our hearts and cry out,

God show Your Mercy again!!!

 

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus

He walks through this trauma too

He promises never to leave us

He is intimately with me and you!

 

Listen to His still small voice whisper

Let Him love you through uncertainty

His friendship is an anchor

He knows your every need.

 

In Him we will find our “New Normal”

Trust Him to show us the Way

He lives and He is Victorious

Thank You Jesus for Easter Day!

 

[1] Adapted from John 11.

Are the Jesus Stories Originally from Egyptian Mythology?

Zeitgeist is a German word referring to both time (zeit) and spirit (geist). The spirit of the times are the popular and influential ideas that are going around. When the Zeitgeist movie was released online in 2007, it gives voice to renewed scepticism about religion in general and Christianity in particular.

It states that the Jesus story we find written in the New Testament is essentially a re-hash of earlier myths about dying and rising Gods. The Jesus of faith wasn’t a real person, rather he was an idea cooked up by people in the past. Here’s a taste of what it says:

 

“Horus … He is the Sun God of Egypt of around 3000 BC. He is the sun anthropomorphized… Horus was born on December 25^th of the virgin Isis-Meri. His birth was accompanied by a star in the east … three kings followed [this] to locate and adorn the new-born saviour. At the age of 12, he was a prodigal child teacher, and at the age of 30 he was baptized by a figure known as Anup and thus began his ministry…he was crucified … buried … and resurrected.”[1]

If this story sounds like the Jesus story, Zeitgeist says you are wrong. It is actually the story of the Egyptian Sun God Horus, who’s story was supposedly repurposed by the Christian church and attributed to the later Jesus of Nazareth.

This idea has a big problem.

Actually – this IS the Jesus story which has been mistakenly applied BACKWARDS onto the character of Egyptian mythology – Horus. This would be a bit like claiming the events from Charles Dicken’s life did not happen. Rather, they were actual events from the life of Ebenezer Scrooge (the character from the book A Christmas Carol) that were passed off as events from Dicken’s life. That’s a pretty absurd claim! Right?

If you think Zeitgeist summarises the Christian story, it’s because it does. But, it does NOT properly recount the Egyptian myth, and it anachronistically and incorrectly imposes historical reports about Jesus onto a mythological Egyptian character called Horus.

 

Chris Forbes is Professor of Ancient History at Macquarie University in Sydney. He’s an expert in ancient myths. And – he has a number of interesting things to say about the mistaken claims of the Zeitgeist movie. You can find a useful interview with Chris here.

 

First – Horus is not an Egyptian sun God. He was the God of the sky. The sun God was Raa. So Zeitgeist’s play on words (sun God vs son of God) is just pointless and irrelevant.

Second – The mother of Horus was Isis, but there’s no evidence in the Egyptian sources that she was a virgin.

Third – Egyptians would not date Horus’s birth as December 25^th, because they used a completely different calendar. December is a Latin month, and so a foreign idea to ancient Egypt.

Fourth – Horus wasn’t crucified and raised from the dead. He wasn’t killed at all. Rather, in this particular myth, it was Osiris who was killed by his brother Set, who dismembered him and hid the pieces around ancient Egypt so they could not be reconstituted again. Isis gathers the pieces, binds them together again with bandages, and so Osiris becomes the first Egyptian mummy that all the rest relate to.

Fifth – the Horus, Isis and Osiris events are not recorded in historical time. Rather, Egyptian mythology is understood to have happened in a kind of dream time, or mythology. By contrast, the New Testament and the reports of Jesus are clearly presented as a historical account.

Sixth – no serious historian doubts that Jesus of Nazareth existed and was crucified by the Romans in the first century. There is debate around whether the Bible’s description of him is correct. But – that he lived is beyond serious consideration. Horus, on the other hand, is a well understood myth.

Seventh – the sources used by the writers of the Zeitgeist movie are not qualified to make their assertions. For example, Gerald Massey is an English Poet and amateur Egyptologist. He’s not a professional historian. And this hurts the credibility of the film and its claims. When you actually check proper references and compare them with the claims that Zeitgeist makes, you can see that actually it is just talking nonsense.

[1] Zeitgeist: The Movie, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrHeg77LF4Y.

Is Easter a Pagan Festival, Stolen By the Church?

Is Easter a pagan festival that was repurposed by the early Christian church? After all – lots of pagan mythological gods were killed and then raised from the dead. Or so various sceptical people claim every year…at Easter!

Maybe Easter is rooted in the Sumerian goddess Ishtar, hung on a stake … subsequently, resurrected?[1] John Dickson observes … quite rightly that “Ishtar” kinda sounds like “Easter.” Right?

Actually – not really.

The word for “Easter” in languages other than English and German sounds very different. Dickson points out the reason for this is that the original word has a Hebrew root. The original word was “Pesach”, which means “Passover.”[2]

What is Passover about? It’s the central Jewish festival, remembering the event in ancient Egypt, where God’s judgement came on the Egyptian oppressors, but it passed over the Jewish nation. It is reported by the New Testament gospels that Jesus was crucified at Passover in 30 AD. And – there’s an amazing parallel going on as this happens in the first century.

At Passover, the Jewish people sacrifice a spotless Lamb to remember the blood that the Jews put on the doorposts in Egypt so that God’s judgement would pass over their houses. In the crucifixion, we have Jesus giving his life so that God’s judgement would pass over those who trust in Christ. This is the real parallel that is going on here. Do you see the parallel?

For much of Christian history, Easter has been referred to as “Pesach,” or Passover. It has only been since Christianity arrived at Germany and English lands that the word “Easter” has been adopted as a reference to spring in the northern hemisphere.

So – does the word “Easter” betray the Pagan roots of the Christian celebration? No. Not at all.

[1] Heather McDougall, The Pagan Roots of Easter, The Guardian, 3^rd April, 2010, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2010/apr/03/easter-pagan-symbolism.

[2] John Dickson, Easter Myths, Undeceptions Podcast, 5^th April, 2020.

Does Human Suffering Suggest Randomness Not Order?

Two brave British nurses have died as a result of treating Covid-19 patients in British hospitals. Areema Nasreen and Aimee O’Rourke are both heroes. But this is a tragedy and my heart goes out to their families who are now facing appalling personal loss, probably without even having had a chance to say goodbye to their own loved ones. I struggle to wrap my mind around just how awful this situation is for them.

It made me wonder. Can we take tragedies like this – and the many more happening around the world right now – as evidence that the world is really just grounded on randomness rather than order and love? Maybe there is no point…no purpose…no grand plan. Just merciless, pitiless, nature and randomness?

Now – clearly I am not one of the people providing these families love and support at this time of grief. Others are doing this important work – I am at a distance. So, from my distant perspective, and having experienced my own appalling personal losses myself, I can say that the Christian message has a lot to say in response to this question about randomness rather than order.

It seems to me that the very question, “is the world random rather than ordered,“ presupposes something important. The fact that we would even ask this question hints toward a sense within us that we are much more than just physical beings.

Think of it like this.

If I am ONLY a physical being … a clump of cells which exist for a while, then what is the problem with that clump of cells going away and ceasing to exist? But we don’t approach the suffering of people in this way. Not at all. Our hearts go out to these suffering people. We intuitively know that these people are MORE than just the sum of their physical parts. In one sense, these families have lost a physical body that interacts with them, because a person in their family has died. But they have lost more than just a physical body. If we think about it, this loss experienced by these families is much much deeper than that.

So – here’ the question. If we also believe these brave and wonderful nurses are MORE than simply physical clumps of cells, then I would ask why we would believe that?

As Amy Orr-Ewing has asked recently, “Why does suffering hurt so much? Because there’s a metaphysical nature to your being…there’s a spiritual aspect to each person.”[1] Suffering is appalling and our hearts go out to individuals who suffer – even if we do not personally know them. Why? Because life is so precious and sacred to us, whether we are a religious person or not.

Christianity doesn’t want us to be religious. Rather, teaches that our currently reality has ultimately been broken and is not as it is supposed to be. Therefore, as a result, everyone dies. Whether by disease, accident or the passage of time…we all die one day. But what we find in the person of Jesus is both light and hope for a future life beyond suffering and beyond the grave.

“The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world…The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth…No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and[b] is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.” (John 1:9, 14, 18, NIV)

The world is not based on randomness. It is broken. But – there is order, and love and a hope for the future.

[1] She Persuades, Undeceptions Podcast, 29^th March 2020.