a place where Christians believe Jesus Christ was buried.
We all know about the COVID-19 pandemic and most of us are living under new restrictions
it has brought with it and a vast distraction from Easter this year. There is much fear and panic happening, from stockpiling common household items to rushing to the doctor asking to be tested. The world watched
as China suffered from its onslaught, yet we as a country did little to prepare for its arrival on our shores.
Our first biggest failure is the lack of test kits being available. These should have been readily on hand in
order to test contacts of those infected. By doing this, those contacts could be quarantined and tested, thereby, limiting the spread of this disease. Unfortunately, we missed this chance to contain the contagion. COVID-19 has been unleased and is now spread through community acquired transmission.
Though we now have more tests available, it is too late to coral this pandemic by tracking contacts alone.
People who are coming down with symptoms this week were probably infected last week when there was no way to test them. Now, to continue to offer testing to asymptomatic people or those with mild symptoms, is wasting supplies that is needed in hospitals for critically ill patients. It also putting more people to be at risk by being around others, even if just traveling to the testing site.
While most states now have stay at home orders from state governors, it only happened when the number of cases sky-rocketed. This means that there are many more people infected before these measures were put into place. We have no idea how many at this point because many people have mild, or even no, signs or symptoms. Yes, these regulations are completely necessary to save lives, but it should have happened sooner.
Panic buying wiped out many medical supplies that healthcare workers on the front lines
are now running out of. These workers are face-to-face with the pathogen on a daily basis. Everyone heard
of the dire shortage of N95 masks, the only ones that are effective in blocking transmission of the virus.
Even exam gloves are now a hard commodity to find. When people started depleting the supplies, there was
no increased production for those battling this disease. Governors are now begging the federal government for PPE (personal protective equipment) for their healthcare workers.
And the answers they receive are slow in coming.
Again, these supplies should have been redistributed to the battle zones weeks ago.
Hospitals are now in dire straits, running out of ICU beds and ventilators. Will we wait until we have to
let patients die before initiating a respond to these pleas? We are already weeks behind where we should be.
We need to set up field hospitals and get vents to the hardest hit areas, like NYC. We are approaching maximum capacity and still have weeks to maybe months to endure this pandemic.
Non-essential workers have been ordered home, not knowing how they’re going to able to afford to live.
Many have been instructed to file for unemployment, but how long will this take? People need these funds now. Will this be another failure of the system?
The POTUS claims he wants America to reopen by May. Yet, most medical experts say it will be months until this should happens. Other countries are now making tough decisions about who they can give life saving treatments to and who they need to leave just die because there are not enough resources available.
For example, in Italy, although deaths are on the decline -doctors are no longer ventilating
anyone over 60 years of age.
Do we want to be forced to make the same tough choices here?
The US healthcare system, as well as our political leaders, have failed to prepare for this pandemic that we witnessed played out in other countries before reaching our shores. We had several weeks heads-up to know what COVID-19 is and what it can potentially do. Yet, it reached us unprepared and we’ve been struggling to catch up ever since. We are still weeks behind where we should be in this war. Can we catch up?
Our system will tolerate no more failures; this is our breaking point.
So, why did this happen?
The main reason is our inexperience.
In the United States, we have never had to deal with Coronavirus. These healthcare workers were thrust into a position of treating something we are just learning about. There were no protocols in place at that time so these healthcare workers were not adequately protected. To be fair, we are facing a new threat that guidelines have had to be developed retrospectively.
Casting blame is not going to help us reach a solution to this rising spread of a disease that many of us never expected would show up within our borders. We all need to come together and discuss the faults in the system and ensure this never happens again and Trust in Jesus Christ our Savior
and remember the sacrifice he made for us on that cross.
Remembering Jesus This Easter Weekend.
What year was Jesus Christ born?
The Bible does not explicitly teach the exact day or even the exact year in which Jesus was born.
It does, however, provide many historical details that can help determine a specific time period during which He was born.
Both Matthew and Luke describe the circumstances surrounding the birth of Jesus. Matthew 2:1 states Jesus was born during the days of Herod the king. This Herod died in the spring of 4 BC, indicating the latest time at which Jesus could have been born on earth. Further, Matthew 2:16 notes Herod commanded all male children two years old and younger to be put to death in his attempt to kill Jesus. This would further provide details that place the birth of Jesus to around 6-4 BC.
Luke’s account provides many additional details. Luke 2:1-2 states, “In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria.” Caesar Augustus reigned from 27 BC to 14 AD. Quirinius required one known census in 6-7 AD, though the census mentioned in Luke seems to be unmentioned in existing literature. The use of the Greek term protos (translated “first”) could also be translated “before” and may have referred to the time period before the census of Quirinius. Another option is that Quirinius served two times as leader in this area and ordered a census during his first reign. In either case, Jesus’ birth between 6-4 BC still agrees.
In Luke 3:23, we are also told Jesus began His public ministry at “about thirty years of age.”
The details provided in Luke 3:1-2 limit the start of His ministry to between about 27-29 AD,
also fitting a birth between 6-4 BC.
Further defining the window during which Jesus was born becomes more difficult based on the available evidence. Because Jews were required to travel to their ancestral towns for a census, it is unlikely that this census took place during the planting or harvest seasons (spring or fall). The most likely time period would have been following the harvest when residents had income to pay taxes and were not involved in the harvest, indicating a time period from late September to the end of the year, likely late 5 BC to early 4 BC.
The later connection of December 25 as the date of Christ’s birth was developed long after the New Testament period. While it serves as the day Christians have chosen to celebrate the birth of Jesus,
the exact date of His birth is unknown.
Others have attempted to use the priestly cycles of the Old Testament to date the birth of
John the Baptist and therefore Jesus to the autumn of 5 BC. This is possible, but impossible to determine
for certain. Others have focused on the “star” spotted by the wise men from the east in an attempt to more specifically date the birth of Christ. However, the fact that these men visited Jesus in a “house” rather than the manger and arrived days or weeks after His birth make any chronology impossible to determine with certainty. Others even seek to calculate the birth of Jesus based on the “70 Weeks” in Daniel 9, but a variety of factors make these findings uncertain. Still others argue a summer birth due to sheep in the field at night
(Though sheep are actually outside year-round in the Middle East.).
While the birth of Christ in the last half of 5 BC is most likely, the evidence can only be given to support
6 to early 4 BC as the window of time for the birth of Christ. Yet the birth of Christ is of utmost importance and worthy of celebration on Christmas and every day. He came to live, die, and rise again to prove
Himself as the Messiah, God’s One and only Son (John 3:16).
When Did Jesus Die? The Year, Day & Time!!
Doug Bookman, New Testament professor at Shepherds Theological Seminary,
explains the consensus among biblical scholars about the year Jesus died.
“It comes down to this. We can discern quite narrowly that Pilate was prefect in Judea Samaria 26 A.D. – 36 A.D. So that’s our window. The next question becomes: On what day did Passover fall in the year Jesus died?
In the minds of most, it fell on Thursday/Friday. It started on sundown on Thursday and went through sundown on Friday. Given all of that, most scholars will agree it drives you to one of two conclusions:”
Theory 1: Jesus died in 30 A.D.
Theory 2: Jesus died in 33 A.D.
Bookman says at this point, “the argument becomes quite technical.” He also says, “With regard to every one
of the chronological questions, there is a case to be built on both. I am persuaded of 33 A.D.
It’s within that construct that I teach the life of Jesus.”
3 Significant Events Shortly After Jesus’ Death
Matthew 27: 51-54, “At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people. When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, “Surely he was the Son of God!”
1. The temple curtain was torn in two.
This curtain separated worshippers in the temple from the Ark of the Covenant and it’s top – the Mercy seat, where God would meet only the High Priest only once a year with an atonement sacrifice. We know from Old Testament regulations that entering God’s presence was serious. After two men died attempting it incorrectly, the Lord gave Moses specific instructions in Leviticus 16 on how to approach him without dying.
The fact that this curtain was destroyed symbolized Jesus Christ’s finished work on the cross that removed the barrier between sinful mankind and holy God by becoming the ultimate High Priest and the ultimate sacrifice. Further, the fact that the curtain was torn “from top to bottom” symbolized that it was torn by God himself,
not by effort of any man.
2. An earthquake opened tombs, and dead saints were raised to life.
According to John Gill’s commentary,
“this was a proof of Christ’s power over death and the grave.”
As Jesus raised himself to life on the third day after he died, he defeated the power of death and the permanency of the grave. Gill went on: “These saints, I apprehend, continued on earth until our Lord’s ascension, and then joining the retinue of angels, went triumphantly with him to heaven, as trophies of his victory over sin, Satan, death, and the grave.”
This event is significant not only because of its bold claims, but also because it is a story foreshadowing Christ’s second coming to gather all the rest of his people. This event reported in Matthew also fulfills a prophecy in Isaiah 26:19, “But your dead will live, LORD; their bodies will rise— let those who dwell in the dust
wake up and shout for joy— your dew is like the dew of the morning; the earth will give birth to her dead.”
3. Jesus is resurrected from the grave.
This passage in Matthew glosses over such an astonishing event, but Christ’s resurrection
is recounted with more detail in Matthew 28 (as well as in Mark 16, Luke 24, and John 20).
JERUSALEM (AP) — Christians are commemorating Jesus’ crucifixion without the solemn church services
or emotional processions of past years, marking Good Friday in a world locked down by the coronavirus pandemic. A small group of clerics are to hold a closed-door service in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, built on the site where Christians believe Jesus was crucified, buried and rose from the dead. They will then walk the Via Dolorosa, the ancient route where he is believed to have carried the cross before his
execution at the hands of the Romans.
In ordinary times, tens of thousands of pilgrims from around the world retrace Jesus’
steps in the Holy Week leading up to Easter. But this year, flights are grounded and religious sites
in the Holy Land are closed as authorities try to prevent the spread of the virus.
The new virus causes mild to moderate symptoms in most patients, who recover within
a few weeks. But it is highly contagious and can be spread by those showing no symptoms.
It can cause severe illness and death in some patients, particularly the old and infirm.
In Rome, the torch-lit Way of the Cross procession at the Colosseum is a highlight of Holy Week,
drawing large crowds of pilgrims, tourists and locals. It’s been cancelled this year, along with all other
public gatherings in Italy, which is battling one of the worst outbreaks.
The virus has killed nearly 19,000 people in Italy and over 102,000 worldwide.
Instead of presiding over the Way of the Cross procession, Pope Francis will lead a Good Friday ceremony in
St. Peter’s Square without the public. Ten people — five from the Vatican’s health office and five from a prison in Padua, in northern Italy, where infections are particularly widespread — will participate in the procession, which will circle several times around the obelisk in St. Peter’s Square. On display in the square will be a wooden crucifix, famed for being carried in a procession during the plague that ravaged
Rome in the early 16th century.
The Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, nearly destroyed by fire a year ago, is holding a special Good Friday ceremony in the charred, gutted interior of the medieval landmark. But the event is closed to the public for two reasons: France’s strict virus confinement measures forbid religious or any other gatherings, and the cathedral remains too structurally unstable
to let parishioners inside. “We wanted to send a message of hope” through the ceremony,
Paris Archbishop Michel Aupetit told reporters this week.
“The message of hope is especially important for our compatriots at a time when we are particularly
affected by the coronavirus, which is sowing anguish and death,” he said.
In the Philippines, Asia’s bastion of Catholicism, masses and other solemn gatherings have
been put on hold, including folk rituals that feature real-life crucifixions and usually
draw thousands of tourists and penitents. The annual procession of the “Black Nazarene,”
a centuries-old statue of Jesus, through downtown Manila, has also been canceled.
Churchgoers have been told to stay home and remember Jesus’ suffering through family prayers,
fasting and by watching masses and religious shows on TV or online.
Related Truth:
What is the importance of the virgin birth of Jesus Christ?
Why do Matthew and Luke have different genealogies of Jesus?
Why doesn’t the Bible say much about Jesus’ childhood?
What were the key events in the life of Jesus?
Is belief in the pre-existence of Jesus biblical?
Return to:
Truth about Jesus Christ