Social distancing. Wearing masks. Having our workplaces and stores shut down. All of this involves suffering to do the right thing.

The second chapter of acts describes the golden era of Christianity. But the most important thing we learn from reading Acts is that such things don't last. A golden age can end in two ways; either God says you're ready and sends the church out to transform the world. Or a golden age can end in nostalgia, apathy, and the failure to adapt.

Thomas wasn’t there. Where was he? The Easter story in John chapter 20 tells about a man refuses to join with the other disciples in an online video-chat with Jesus. How do you like doing Zoom? There’s always someone who shows up muted or with their video turned off. Others simply opt out. This Easter on Zoom, my extroverted brother-in-law was in the shadows, occasionally disappeared, and never spoke. Like Thomas, he isn’t adjusting well to the new reality. We can see and hear, but not touch.

We enter Holy Week, aware that this is global pandemic. Those who die in Italy, Iran, and Wuhan are no longer foreigners to us.  We remember the crowds and know that we are all in this together. No one is isolated from the compassion of Jesus.

If we learn the lesson of compassion, the coronavirus will reveal to us the glory of God. This disruption to our normal lives, has brought us to the place where we can encounter Jesus anew. Once we know we are blind, the sight-giver will come. 

Most of us are never told that we can set out from the known and the familiar to take on a further journey. To be, as Jesus puts it, born again.

Consider the thinness of the barrier that separates earthly and heavenly things. When Jesus was transfigured, he stepped over that spiritual barrier in an instant. Then he stepped back.