{"id":5871,"date":"2020-04-25T08:00:15","date_gmt":"2020-04-25T00:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/?p=5871"},"modified":"2021-10-15T11:12:02","modified_gmt":"2021-10-15T03:12:02","slug":"easter-bodies-and-coronavirus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/?p=5871","title":{"rendered":"247. Easter Bodies and Coronavirus"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><span style=\"color: #008080;\"><sup>24\u00a0<\/sup>But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.\u00a0<sup>25\u00a0<\/sup>So the other disciples told him, \u201cWe have seen the Lord.\u201d But he said to them, \u201cUnless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #008080;\"><sup>26\u00a0<\/sup>A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, \u201cPeace be with you.\u201d\u00a0<sup>27\u00a0<\/sup>Then he said to Thomas, \u201cPut your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.\u201d\u00a0<sup>28\u00a0<\/sup>Thomas answered him, \u201cMy Lord and my God!\u201d\u00a0<sup>29\u00a0<\/sup>Jesus said to him, \u201cHave you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.\u201d<\/span><\/strong> [<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">John 20:24-29<\/span>, <span style=\"color: #000000;\"><em>NRSV<\/em>]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/coronavirus-campaign-hero-1-1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-5879\" src=\"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/coronavirus-campaign-hero-1-1-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"233\" height=\"233\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/30May1994.Thousands-of-Rwandan-refugees-cross-the-border-into-Tanzania-carrying-their-belongings.-Jeremiah-Kamau-Reuters-1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-5880\" src=\"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/30May1994.Thousands-of-Rwandan-refugees-cross-the-border-into-Tanzania-carrying-their-belongings.-Jeremiah-Kamau-Reuters-1-300x271.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"258\" height=\"233\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/mass-graves.New-York-1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-5881\" src=\"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/mass-graves.New-York-1-300x168.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"413\" height=\"231\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">1. Coronavirus COVID-19; 2. 30-May-1994 Rwandan refugees crossing into Tanzania (Jeremiah Kamau, Reuters) to escape the genocide; 3. Mass grave for COVID-19 deaths, New York city.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">In the COVID-19 international pandemic, a novel Coronavirus is ravaging the human body, taking heavy human casualties and wreaking deeply worrying economic havoc around the globe. But a microscopic virus is not the only culprit in the terrifying body-bags equation. Where their political goals are elsewhere-located than genuine concern for the people, self-serving politicians factor the economy of the body-politic over body bags. Money and ballots are higher calibrated than lives. Taking our reflection a short step further, one gets to the challenging question of complicity on the part of Christian churches wherever they fail scrutiny under the lens of human solidarity. Christian thinkers, both the deeply Christian ones and those who are nominally Christian, provide us with the contours of light and darkness along which we may tread.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong style=\"font-size: 15px;\"><u>1. The Incarnation Takes Up a Real Human Body<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong><em>The Incarnation is about truly assuming the human body and the human nature<\/em><\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Jesus of Nazareth was truly human and not only appeared to be human as the <em>docetists<\/em> claimed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">In <em><u>Easter People: Living Community<\/u><\/em> (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2005), Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle stresses the very concrete reality of <strong><em>the human body<\/em><\/strong> in the Incarnation. He writes:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The Incarnation does not mean that Jesus simply assumed a human body. The assumption of the human body for Jesus meant that God became entangled in the mess called <strong><em>human existence<\/em><\/strong>. Jesus\u2019 identification and solidarity with the human condition \u2013 its problems, longings, sufferings, failures, dreams, and hopes \u2013 is a missionary element of the Incarnation. The Incarnation of Jesus is a call to us to get involved in human beings.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">This \u201ccall\u201d to get to know \u2013 to get \u201cinvolved in\u201d &#8211; the suffering \u201cbody\u201d is graphically portrayed in the Gospel story of the \u201cdoubting\u201d Thomas in John 20:24-29. There, Thomas was invited to put his finger into the nailed hands and pierced side of the previously savaged and now raised body of Jesus. That invitation was necessary because Thomas would not and could not be a seriously believing and properly acting disciple following after the footsteps of Jesus the Suffering-Servant Messiah, unless and until he has touched \u2013 gotten involved in &#8211; the wounded body of the crucified and risen Lord. The deeper message demands our attention: clearly, we need to get into <strong><em>human wounds and human woundedness<\/em><\/strong> to be really involved in the vicissitudes of human existence. For the Easter people, to truly serve someone who suffers, to be truly in solidarity with them, our resurrection-practices in Christian ministry first requires of us <strong><em>to stay with their wounds<\/em><\/strong>. The post-resurrection Thomas-episode in John\u2019s Gospel tells us not to avoid the wounds, nor run away from them. <strong><em>You come close to a person only if you come close to their wounds<\/em><\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">This is where Pope Francis is at his spiritual and pastoral best, insisting as he often does, that the Church of Christ must be like a field hospital attending to <strong><em>wounded bodies<\/em><\/strong>. This is where the Holy Father is coming from: he prefers <strong><em>a<\/em><\/strong> \u201c<strong><em>church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security<\/em><\/strong>.\u201d Christian ministers of all shades shall open their doors in order <strong><em>to go out<\/em><\/strong> to where the needs are, to serve the suffering and the wounded, to accompany them on their journey of life, listening to their stories and touching their wounds instead of being too quick to pronounce tough doctrines and harsh legal demands.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The minister, however, must go through a prior step. In <em><u>The Wounded Healer: Ministry in Contemporary Society<\/u><\/em> (New York: Image Books, 1990), Henri J.M. Nouwen provides the piercing insight that to authentically minister to wounded bodies requires of us to <strong><em>first<\/em><\/strong> <strong><em>get in touch with our own woundedness<\/em><\/strong>. This is closely connected to the resurrection message of \u201cpeace\u201d Jesus gave his disciples. It is a message that says he understands their wounds and fears, but they can now move forward by embracing his presence, his truth, and his peace with which he blesses them. Nouwen clarifies his notion of \u201cwounded healers\u201d:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Nobody escapes being wounded. We all are wounded people, whether physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually. The main question is not \u201cHow can we hide our wounds?\u201d so we don\u2019t have to be embarrassed, but \u201cHow can we put our woundedness in the service of others?\u201d When our wounds cease to be a source of shame, and become a source of healing, we have become wounded healers.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cJesus is God\u2019s wounded healer,\u201d he says, for \u201cthrough his wounds we are healed. Jesus\u2019 suffering and death brought joy and life. His humiliation brought glory; his rejection brought a community of love. As followers of Jesus we can also allow our wounds to bring healing to others.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">After resurrection, Jesus appeared to his disciples everywhere that they happened to be. In other words, he continued to be with and among them, just as he was before the crucifixion. After the Ascension, he sent them the Holy Spirit. In this way, he continued to be present among them and in the world, leading and inspiring them, working alongside them. After Pentecost, therefore, he became visibly <strong><em>present<\/em><\/strong> among his followers, but <strong><em>as the community of disciples<\/em><\/strong>. Quite literally from that time on, disciples of Jesus have become <strong><em>the Body of Christ<\/em><\/strong>. At the Incarnation, Jesus became the human face of God. From the first Pentecost, the disciples became the human face of Christ. The only face of Christ visible to the world is the face of the Church, the community of disciples, the Body of Christ. How that <strong><em>Body<\/em><\/strong> behaves is all that the world shall see of the Christ and shall base their evaluation of the Christian faith on.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong style=\"font-size: 15px;\"><u>2. A Literally Insane Easter Season of Bodies<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong><em>Easter is about Resurrection of the Body. <\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Resurrection is the work of God, who raised Jesus from death to new life. It is not the resuscitation of a dead corpse.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">In <em><u>Mirror to the Church: Resurrecting Faith after Genocide in Rwanda<\/u><\/em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2009), Emmanuel Katongole, a Ugandan Catholic Priest and a tenured professor at Notre Dame University in the USA, offers a powerful analysis of the Rwandan Genocide. The genocide captured world attention for its mind-numbing scale of insane slaughter of human bodies, some one million or so within a 100-day mad rampage. Evil ran deep. Exactly one week before the command to kill was given, on Maundy Thursday (\u201c<em><u>Maundy<\/u><\/em>\u201d comes from the Latin <em><u>Mandatum<\/u><\/em> which means command), Christians in Rwanda gathered in church to listen, recall and remember from Scriptures, how Jesus gathered with his disciples in the Upper Room, washed their feet, shared a meal, and gave them a new command that would change the face of the earth, to:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201c<strong><em>Love<\/em><\/strong> one another. As I have loved you, so you must <strong><em>love<\/em><\/strong> one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you <strong><em>love<\/em><\/strong> one another\u201d (John 13:34-35). Three times, the Lord commanded the disciples to love.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">That the insane slaughter of human bodies by professed Christians began on the Thursday of Easter week 1994, in a country that was more than 85% Christian, that European missionaries bragged as a missionary success and a model of evangelization in Africa, raised urgent questions of costly and cheap faith. Madness reigned over genocidal decisions. To settle ethnic differences (see Katongole\u2019s detailed historical analyses), one million or so Rwandan bodies were wantonly \u201chacked to pieces\u201d, mostly by machetes. <strong><em>In the darkness of the night, as always, the starkest of betrayals began. Christians killed Christians during the Easter Week. One half of the Body of Christ slaughtered the other half. Blood was thicker than the water of baptism!<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Shrouded under a Rwandan \u201cEaster season of bodies\u201d, Christians of all shades, Katongole insists, are called to critical examination of what Christianity is all about, what authentic missionary and evangelization work ought to be, and what kind of a face of Christ do we portray to the world. Rwanda has put Christianity on trial. The Church which Christ left behind failed scrutiny. Shame.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Katongole does not mince his words:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cThe tragedy in Rwanda is also a mirror reflecting the deep brokenness of the church.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cRwanda brings us to a cry of lament on our knees where together we learn that we must interrupt these patterns of brokenness.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">To properly use Rwanda as <strong><em>mirror<\/em><\/strong>, to <strong><em>lament<\/em><\/strong> on our knees, and to <strong><em>interrupt<\/em><\/strong> all these patterns of brokenness, encounter with the Crucified and Risen Christ has got to be the key. Resurrection is nothing, if it is not about a new creation and about hope. For Easter is concerned not only with recalling the resurrection of Jesus and the impact on his disciples, but also with the meaning of Easter for our faith and our lives today and every day. The one thing that all those Gospel accounts of encounters with the Risen Lord have in common is that they are <strong><em>always life-giving<\/em><\/strong>:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">the Lord comes through lockdowns to bring peace that overcomes paralyzing fear;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">he forgives the disciples and commissions them anew;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">he empowers them with gifts from on high;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">he wants them to build and share loving relationships and to empower humble service to the community, mindful always of the needy.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Both the 1994 Rwanda Genocide and COVID-19 pandemic are Easter events. We who are blessed because we \u201chave not seen and yet believe,\u201d shall be particularly mindful of those in need of our material and emotional support, our protection from injustice and intolerance. Truly, this time of Coronavirus is an ideal time to be the face of the Risen One, to be a sign of hope and compassion, tolerance and mercy. This is the opportune time to be a true sign that we <em><u>are<\/u><\/em> the Body of Christ saving bodies instead of being callous about body-bags.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong style=\"font-size: 15px;\"><u>3. Saving Bodies vs. Saving the Economy<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong><em>The right to life is the most basic of human rights. <\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The term \u201cpro-life\u201d suggests life-saving and life-guarding, which enjoys strong endorsement by Christian groups across the denominations that decry abortion rights and the related \u201cpro-choice\u201d. It is scarcely surprising that many American politicians would ostensibly throw their weights behind pro-life Christian churches and groups, posturing as they do behind their ballot boxes. But merely carrying a slogan says little about the contents of one\u2019s actions. Trump, ostensibly pro-life, is a classic case in point. This is awfully clear in his eagerness to open businesses in America even as the country is in the grips of the COVID-19 crisis. With both his family businesses and his ballot box under severe threat so long as economic activities are under lockdown, Trump has openly declared that he would rather see more American deaths than continue the halt on economy. He would waive all considerations on body-bags, just so businesses could reopen. Acting as the <em>imperium in imperio<\/em> (the supreme and soverign head in a so-called democratic government), he would sacrifice bodies for money and ballots. This is self-serving to the extreme, the very anti-thesis of \u201cpro-life\u201d. He would sacrifice American bodies for political gains, purely for personal ambition. A raw power play for political control, Trump manifests himself as a ruthlessly self-serving and untrustworthy leader. He is anything but pro-life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">In this, he pales miserably in comparison with his counterpart Xi Jinping in the communist government of China. We see here <strong><em>an element of surprise<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0which characterises the Easter story. Just as Christians would expect a \u201cChristian\u201d response from a so-called Christian country like the USA, and its so-called Christian \u201cpro-life\u201d leader Trump, what we get is a callous preferential option for the body-bags, so long as businesses can open at once. And, surprise, from a communist government which Western propaganda has all but dismissed as \u201cauthoritarian\u201d and \u201cevil\u201d, what we get is a perfectly Christian response. The truly Easter response is found in unexpected places, in this case, from the so-called non-believing, non-Christian, Communist China. The reason, as Professor Martin Jacques of Cambridge University puts it: \u201c<strong><em>The Chinese government<\/em><\/strong> <strong><em>understood that life came before the economy<\/em><\/strong>.\u201d Or, as a Chinese lady commenting on her people tenaciously pulling their weight to save lives and to put a lid on the curve of infection writes: \u201c<strong><em>T<\/em><\/strong><strong><em>he Chinese people cherish and protect lives, which is a manifestation of the beauty of human nature<\/em><\/strong>.\u201d Throughout the time since the novel Coronavirus first exploded in Wuhan, the driving spirit and operative principle of China, in keeping with her socialist concerns for the people, is <strong><em>first and foremost to save lives at all costs<\/em><\/strong>. When lives are at stake, nothing matters more than saving lives. Pro-life is not a cheap slogan. Pro-life in the Chinese socialist system is not shouted from the rooftops, but lived and enacted, and evidence-attested through sweat and toil, blood and tears, and much untold sacrifices. In the socialist system, life is sacred. You do not look to saving the financial capital first; the people are your capital. You knuckle down and save human bodies for all you can. There\u2019s nothing more important than that. You save lives. You make your contribution to the larger good. That\u2019s pro-life, in substance and in truth.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Why do we see this distorted picture \u2013 a so-called Christian democratic nation like the USA behaving in a blatantly unchristian fashion, and a supposedly non-Christian Communist nation upholding values that are gloriously Christian? Perhaps the writings of Karl Rahner, SJ, the preeminent Catholic theologian of the 20<sup>th<\/sup> century may throw some light. He takes us back to our first quote from Tagle. In his extensive writings on the Incarnation, Rahner said that God can and must be \u201cexperienced\u201d in the living reality all around us whether it be in a supposedly Christian democratic nation or a supposedly non-Christian Communist nation. Catholics, for instance, have been socialized into believing that \u201ctemple worship\u201d (read \u201cHoly Mass\u201d) is what is most essential, and that their spirituality and religious duties can best be (even \u201conly be\u201d?) exercised within the confines of sacred spaces and with holy things. Rahner corrected that view. Christians in a largely secularized world, he explained, have to find their union with God, not in places and things that traditional religion marks out as \u201csacred\u201d, but in that which it abhors as \u201cmundane\u201d. With the Incarnation, nothing is merely \u201cmundane\u201d. <strong><em>Rather, the whole of the created reality is infused with transcendence, precisely because of the Incarnation of God in the person of Jesus the Christ<\/em><\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Sadly today, economics has come to dominate our world instead of basic human rights. Pope Francis has strong words to say in this regard. During Mass on Easter Monday (13 April 2020), the Holy Father urged governments, scientists and politicians to find solutions to the COVID-19 crisis in consideration of the people. They discharge their duties, he said, only if they choose the life of the people over the god of money. The Holy Father recalled Christ\u2019s warning that one cannot serve both the Lord God and the lord of money. To choose money over people\u2019s lives is to be callous about body bags. That, to the Holy Father, is to fail to bet on the resurrection of the people and on the God of life, but instead to bet on the god of money and to fall back into the tomb where only the body of the dead lies.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Copyright \u00a9 Dr. Jeffrey &amp; Angie Goh, April 2020. All rights reserved.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">You are most welcome to respond to this post. Email your comments to <strong><u><a style=\"color: #000000;\" href=\"mailto:jeffangiegoh@gmail.com\">jeffangiegoh@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/u><\/strong> You can also be dialogue partners in this <em>Ephphatha Coffee-Corner Ministry<\/em> by sending us questions for discussion.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>24\u00a0But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.\u00a025\u00a0So the other disciples told him, \u201cWe have seen the Lord.\u201d But he said to them, \u201cUnless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/?p=5871\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"rttpg_featured_image_url":null,"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"Dr. Jeffrey &amp; Angie Goh","author_link":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/?author=1"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"<a href=\"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/?cat=1\" rel=\"category\">From Our Perspective<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"24\u00a0But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.\u00a025\u00a0So the other disciples told him, \u201cWe have seen the Lord.\u201d But he said to them, \u201cUnless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and&hellip;","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5871"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5871"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6692,"href":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5871\/revisions\/6692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}