The etymology of the word “pathogen” is found in the Greek root which means “to produce suffering.” Nothing, nothing produces suffering more than sin. From the Wet Markets of China to the Slave Markets West Africa and Charleston; from the Black Markets and Drug Markets of mendicity, mankind seems still willing to sell their soul and birthright, and the hope of heaven itself for a farthing. Paul described all of creation as “groaning” under the weight and curse of sin. Sin has turned the world into a gulag and long chain gang, a slaughterhouse, a cemetery, and a way of sorrows. Billions of sheep, bulls and goats have been slain on a million bloody altars, since the first sin, and yet sin waxes worse and worse. I saw a photo of a dog about to be slain in a Chinese dog market, and it pained me. Yet worse, the sight of an innocent lamb being led to the slaughter should be enough to break our hearts, yet most remain unmoved. God takes no pleasure in such a sight or sacrifice. On Earth, every death is tantamount to a tombstone that could be etched with the words “from the beginning it was not so.” Morgues are filling up with corpses and civilization is collapsing while the world’s disciples (of Darwin, Freud, and Marx) either struggle or dance with demons at the bottom of Mount Calvary, oblivious to the fact that the answer to all man’s woes hangs there, there on the cross. They are unmoved by the scandal, the spectacle, the only solution and Savior who died to defeat death itself. Death? Yes, death, for “from the beginning it was not so.” Let the whole world know that “the wages of sin is death.” But, let it also hear the only hope that “the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Social distancing may save some people to prepare for the next plague or next pandemic, or to fight over the remaining scraps and bones of economic and moral ruin, but those scraps are contaminated still. Sin has already separated us from God, with an impassable gulf of spiritual separation. Perhaps some will lift their eyes during this unusual Easter season and without chocolate bunnies and jelly beans, see Jesus, the Lamb of God dying once for all and for all their sin, who also arose on the third day as he promised, so all that put their faith in him, should not perish, but live a new and abundant life, and to live with him forever.
– id