Living in a Fairy Tale: Easter in the Time of Coronavirus
This morning, the news reported that the United States’ deaths from the novel coronavirus (covid-19) could peak on Sunday. Our country has already had close to 17,000 deaths (a number which is almost certainly lower than the actual total due to reporting lags and a shortage of tests necessary to correctly attribute the cause of death in some cases), so the fact that we haven’t hit our peak yet means more sad days are to come. But I find it so, dare I say, beautiful that this dark day is going to come on the same day that Christians celebrate the defeat of death forever - Easter.
Today is Good Friday, an agonizing day for Jesus and His followers, the day we remember His death on the cross. This Good Friday especially, we may be tempted to think that if there really was a God there would be no death, no pain, no pandemic that’s killed tens of thousands already, maybe as many as 100,000 when it’s all over. You’re right, those things aren’t of God. In fact, there were none of those things in the perfect world God created. But humanity chose to go our own way and, in so doing, brought a curse down upon our world. The curse is what causes our world of pain, evil, and death.
It sounds like a fairy tale, you’re thinking - the kingdom is cursed, the people live under the reign of an evil one. You’re right. That’s because fairy tales are Types that can point us to the one true story. And what in fairy tales has to happen to break the curse? In many of the stories, it’s some act of true love. In others, it’s a trick played on the evil one, where he thinks he’s won until the last moment, when everything falls apart for him and the hero escapes with the rescued princess.
Our cosmic story is no different. In the supreme act of love, God Himself entered our cursed kingdom and lived fully under the curse for 33 years. However, because He was God, the evil one couldn’t overpower Him or silence Him; he couldn’t stop people from hearing about the one true kingdom and choosing to change their citizenship. So he worked his plot and convinced the cursed kingdom that the God-man should be killed. Today, Good Friday, is the day God died and our enemy, the evil one, thought he won.
Today, we too are living in “the valley of the shadow of death;” in the United States alone, we will probably see between 1,700 and 2,000 people die from covid-19 today. This is tragic. It may make us think the evil one is winning. We may think God has abandoned us or was never even there to begin with. We may think that no one can break the curse we’re under or that we’ll have to do it ourselves. But these are just lies of the evil one. He’s mad because he got tricked and he wants us to be deceived, too.
Because God played the ultimate trick on him. On Good Friday, it seemed like the evil one had won. He had convinced the cursed kingdom’s citizens that the God-man needed to be killed. They murdered Him in a gruesome way, and His followers were scattered and hid or denied Him altogether. The evil one danced and hailed his victory; he partied for two days.
What he didn’t realize, though, was that the God-man had just performed the supreme act of love necessary to break the curse: the death of one who had managed to live in the cursed kingdom without becoming cursed himself. Only the death of an uncursed one could break the curse.
So the evil one partied for two days, but on the third day, the God-man’s grave was empty. He was alive! His death had broken the curse on the kingdom, but what the evil one didn’t know was that death has no power over Him. He wasn’t bound by the curse! The evil one could kill the uncursed one, but he couldn’t keep Him dead. While the evil one thought he had won, he had actually just facilitated the act of love needed to break the curse on the kingdom.
Right now, we continue to live in the cursed kingdom, even those of us who have become citizens of the true kingdom. We live as under the curse because the true King wants to give everyone in the cursed kingdom the chance to transfer citizenship. Those who become citizens of the true kingdom will only walk through the valley of the shadow of death. We will taste death, but it will just be a taste. On the other side, we will take our place in the true kingdom, where death is no more, and there is neither sorrow nor pain.
This Sunday may be the deadliest day we see in the covid-19 pandemic. But in a beautiful coincidence, it’s also the day we remember that death was defeated forever. The curse on our kingdom is broken and its full restoration is coming. All of us who’ve transferred our citizenship to the true kingdom die here only to live there. And that’s why our country’s darkest day can also be our most hopeful one.
Today is Good Friday, an agonizing day for Jesus and His followers, the day we remember His death on the cross. This Good Friday especially, we may be tempted to think that if there really was a God there would be no death, no pain, no pandemic that’s killed tens of thousands already, maybe as many as 100,000 when it’s all over. You’re right, those things aren’t of God. In fact, there were none of those things in the perfect world God created. But humanity chose to go our own way and, in so doing, brought a curse down upon our world. The curse is what causes our world of pain, evil, and death.
It sounds like a fairy tale, you’re thinking - the kingdom is cursed, the people live under the reign of an evil one. You’re right. That’s because fairy tales are Types that can point us to the one true story. And what in fairy tales has to happen to break the curse? In many of the stories, it’s some act of true love. In others, it’s a trick played on the evil one, where he thinks he’s won until the last moment, when everything falls apart for him and the hero escapes with the rescued princess.
Our cosmic story is no different. In the supreme act of love, God Himself entered our cursed kingdom and lived fully under the curse for 33 years. However, because He was God, the evil one couldn’t overpower Him or silence Him; he couldn’t stop people from hearing about the one true kingdom and choosing to change their citizenship. So he worked his plot and convinced the cursed kingdom that the God-man should be killed. Today, Good Friday, is the day God died and our enemy, the evil one, thought he won.
Today, we too are living in “the valley of the shadow of death;” in the United States alone, we will probably see between 1,700 and 2,000 people die from covid-19 today. This is tragic. It may make us think the evil one is winning. We may think God has abandoned us or was never even there to begin with. We may think that no one can break the curse we’re under or that we’ll have to do it ourselves. But these are just lies of the evil one. He’s mad because he got tricked and he wants us to be deceived, too.
Because God played the ultimate trick on him. On Good Friday, it seemed like the evil one had won. He had convinced the cursed kingdom’s citizens that the God-man needed to be killed. They murdered Him in a gruesome way, and His followers were scattered and hid or denied Him altogether. The evil one danced and hailed his victory; he partied for two days.
What he didn’t realize, though, was that the God-man had just performed the supreme act of love necessary to break the curse: the death of one who had managed to live in the cursed kingdom without becoming cursed himself. Only the death of an uncursed one could break the curse.
So the evil one partied for two days, but on the third day, the God-man’s grave was empty. He was alive! His death had broken the curse on the kingdom, but what the evil one didn’t know was that death has no power over Him. He wasn’t bound by the curse! The evil one could kill the uncursed one, but he couldn’t keep Him dead. While the evil one thought he had won, he had actually just facilitated the act of love needed to break the curse on the kingdom.
Right now, we continue to live in the cursed kingdom, even those of us who have become citizens of the true kingdom. We live as under the curse because the true King wants to give everyone in the cursed kingdom the chance to transfer citizenship. Those who become citizens of the true kingdom will only walk through the valley of the shadow of death. We will taste death, but it will just be a taste. On the other side, we will take our place in the true kingdom, where death is no more, and there is neither sorrow nor pain.
This Sunday may be the deadliest day we see in the covid-19 pandemic. But in a beautiful coincidence, it’s also the day we remember that death was defeated forever. The curse on our kingdom is broken and its full restoration is coming. All of us who’ve transferred our citizenship to the true kingdom die here only to live there. And that’s why our country’s darkest day can also be our most hopeful one.
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