Do Churches Offer Essential Services?

The term “essential services” is often used during this COVID pandemic. The term is used in reference to agencies like law enforcement, healthcare, utilities and other community-based services. Another agency that is rarely mentioned is Human Services.

According to the National [American] Organization for Human Services, “the field of Human Services is broadly defined as an agency that meets human needs, through an interdisciplinary knowledge base, focusing on prevention as well as remediation of problems, and maintaining a commitment to improving the overall quality of life of service populations.”

The Human Services profession is one which promotes improved service delivery systems by addressing not only the quality of direct services, but also by seeking to improve accessibility, accountability, and coordination among professionals and agencies in service delivery. The primary purpose of a Human Services professional is to assist individuals and communities to function as effectively as possible in the major domains of living.

Human Services professionals work in community, residential care, or institutional settings providing direct services such as leading a group, organizing an activity, or offering individual counselling. Human Services aim to have clients overcome adversity through strength-based approaches. Approaches that empower clients to make positive life choices, allowing them to reach their full potential.

In responding to COVID-19, many communities have instituted measures that deprive persons of reaching their full potential. For instance, social distancing has resulted in depression and loneliness. Depression is usually characterized by feelings of despair, overwhelm, apathy, accompanied by changes in weight loss or weight gain, disrupted sleep, and increased irritability, anger, or confusion.

When added to the alarming increase of persons losing their jobs and domestic violence, one is not surprised by the increasing use of abusive substances and threats of suicide. One fears that the impact of this pandemic may even be more dangerous than the pandemic itself.

Long before the COVID-19 pandemic, churches have been involved in services now defined as Human Services. Throughout her history, churches have provided coping skills to assist people to deal with death, trauma, family conflicts, existential fear, stress and anxiety.

Rodney Stark, in his volume, The Victory of Reason, contends that “Christianity and its related institutions are directly responsible for the most significant intellectual, political, scientific, and economic break-throughs of the past millennium.” Inherent in the Christian mission is the desire to allow persons to reach their full potential.

For this reason, it was not unusual to find the compassionate response of agencies like Samaritan’s Purse to the crisis in New York City. Like so many other Christian groups, there was no need for governments to appeal for help, churches naturally respond to crises. Agreed, the professional terms used in Human Services are different. However, the services offered are identical.

Whereas many in the Human Services are referred to as paid professionals, Christians who offer similar services are simply referred to as volunteers. Like in the Catholic tradition, some leaders with earned doctorates in their areas of service, are referred to professionally as merely brothers and sisters – terms that describe one’s attitude. This is so because, for Christians, one’s attitude to service is as important as one’s skill set in offering that service.

Even while complying with the appeals for social distancing, Christians are finding creative ways to deliver care packages and serve the most vulnerable. Churches continue to encourage and challenge congregants through virtual channels. Having lost the opportunity to meet physically and loose the sense of community, other aspects of community emerge through the internet.

Weekly I find myself participating in gatherings that bring together people from different countries. Among those gathered are elderly folks who are considered shut-ins at face-to-face gatherings. Such occasions have allowed me to address topics like anxiety, loneliness and learning how to cope in difficult times. Try to imagine the positive impact that kind of weekly interaction would have on persons experiencing despair.

Despite the significant contribution of the faith community, our faith and views of life are often relegated to superstition. Constantly, we are pressured to believe that only a scientific approach would get us out of this pandemic. In a spirit of arrogance some commentators tout our achievements and demand of others that they wait on science, before total victory can be discovered.

When would our media analysts realize that the finitude of mundane existence cannot completely satisfy the human heart? As I asked in a recent sermon, to whom do we turn when we feel overwhelmed? Do we wait only for scientific answers? Thankfully, there is another realm from which we hear these words:

Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Saviour.

The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
he enables me to tread on the heights (Habakkuk 3:17).

Now you determine if the compassionate contribution from churches, that empower people and allow them to reach their full potential, qualify to be an essential service during this pandemic.  

I Was Wrong

In my last blog, Disposing of Dead Bodies, I referred to an edict, as told by the late Professor F.F. Bruce. Professor Bruce retold the story of Roman Emperor Claudius and his edict to forbid tampering with dead bodies. Because this edict was issued within fifteen years of the resurrection of Jesus, I agreed with Professor Bruce and concluded that the narrow time-span strongly suggested that the edict may have been a reaction to the resurrection of Jesus. In addition, because the edict allegedly came from Nazareth, the Jesus connection would seem natural.

Well, recent research strongly suggests that I was wrong. Earlier this year, after getting permission to extract a sample from the back of the tablet, which is housed at the National Library of France, geochemists ground one milligram of the marble into powder and used laser ablation to release the gas from the marble’s minerals. By measuring the ratios of carbon and oxygen isotopes, they captured the unique chemical fingerprint of the marble.

The study of the tablet published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, clarified the origin of the tablet and points to a finding different from what I stated in my last blog. In other words, to infer that the “Nazareth Tablet” may have been as a result of the resurrection of Jesus is wrong.

However, what is not wrong, is to conclude that the bodily resurrection of Jesus did take place. Apart from the affirmations from Scripture, there are other valid archaeological inferences that could be made to confirm the resurrection of Jesus. One inference I often use is the absent bone box.

Bone boxes or ossuaries are made of limestone. In the first century, following death and entombment, the bones of the diseased were taken and placed in a bone box or ossuary. On the outside of the ossuary was inscribed the name of the deceased. This process would take place sometime after one year of entombment. Ossuaries would then be stored in a crypt (vault) like books are stored in a library. Of the roughly 900 catalogued ossuaries from the first century, 250 bear inscriptions.

In 1990, a bone chest was discovered accidentally during work in Jerusalem’s Peace Forest. This “Caiaphas Ossuary” belonged to the high priest from CE 18-36. The inscription, found in two places, read: “Caiaphas” and “Joseph, son of Caiaphas.” First-century Jewish historian Josephus provided the full name, “Joseph, who is called Caiaphas of the high priesthood.”

Archaeologists have found bone boxes for Pilate and even James, the brother of Jesus, but no credible claims have been made concerning an ossuary for Jesus. Should such an ossuary be found, that would be the death of Christianity. At the heart of the Christian faith is the claim that Jesus died and physically came back to life. To find an artifact that suggests otherwise would be disastrous.

The apostle Paul expressed this view when he said, “and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins” (1 Corinthians 15:17). The issue for historians, is not so much the death of Jesus. It is the claim that Jesus came back to life. To come back to life is not humanly possible. Hence, the Christian claim is that God intervened and brought Jesus back to life.

In 2007, the documentary “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” unveiled two ancient stone boxes they claim may have once contained the remains of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. The researchers for the film argued that ten small caskets discovered in 1980 in a Jerusalem suburb may have held the bones of Jesus and his family.

But that argument cannot be credible. It has been debunked by credible non-Christian scholars. In addition, the family of Jesus came from Nazareth, approximately eighty miles away from the area where this tomb was found. Furthermore, how was this ossuary not found before?

Imagine, by the third day following the death of Jesus, his followers were contending that he was alive. From that moment, his fearful followers displayed strength. They vigorously claimed to be eyewitnesses of Jesus, following his death. This would have been before his remains should have been transferred to a bone box. It would have been so easy to identify the tomb and confirm that the body of Jesus was still in the tomb.

Fifty days following the death of Jesus, Peter publicly claims that “God raised Jesus from the dead” (Acts 2:24). Following this declaration, thousands of Jews made commitments to follow the resurrected Jesus. Why wasn’t the declaration of resurrection debunked by the authorities? That would have nullified the commitments made at that Pentecost event.

However, today, almost 2,000 years after the death of Jesus, many are still looking for his bone box. There is one simple reason the bone box of Jesus would never be found – no bone box was ever necessary. Bone boxes are for the deceased, not the delivered.

Disposing of Dead Bodies

New York City officials have hired contract laborers to bury terminal victims of COVID-19. Normally, some 25 bodies of unclaimed corpses are interred each week by jail inmates working on the island. That number began increasing as the new coronavirus spread rapidly. Now, there are about 25 bodies a day, five days a week buried on the island.

The proper disposal of dead bodies is humane, civil and ensures the security of the deceased. This form of security is necessary for forensic purposes and also to dissuade the practice of selling dead bodies for dissection or lectures in Anatomy.

From ancient times, tombstones and coffins contained inscriptions warning offenders not to interfere with the contents. Tampering with the dead was a dishonor to the memories of the dead. In addition, the habit encouraged the practice of necromancy – communicating with the dead.

In the New Testament, after the death of Jesus, the Jewish authorities found a new reason to enforce this ban of tampering with dead bodies. The Jewish authorities realized that the tomb where the body of Jesus had been placed was empty – His body could not be found.

                          

Therefore, according to the New Testament record, the Jewish authorities devised a plan to bribe the soldiers who were on duty to guard the tomb. The soldiers were to testify that “His disciples came during the night and stole Him away while we were asleep” (Matthew 28:13).

The Roman soldiers accepted the bribe, thus implicating the disciples of Jesus. However, nowhere in history do we read where the disciples were charged for stealing the dead body of Jesus. Obviously, such a charge would require the prosecution to produce as irrefutable evidence the stolen body.

In his volume, New Testament History, the late Professor F.F. Bruce tells the story of Roman Emperor Claudius and his edict to forbid tampering with dead bodies. This edict was issued within fifteen years after the resurrection of Jesus:

“It is my pleasure that sepulchers and tombs, which have been erected as solemn memorials of ancestors or children or relatives, shall remain undisturbed in perpetuity... Let no one disturb them on any account. Otherwise it is my will that capital sentence be passed upon such person for the crime of tomb-spoilation.”

That edict of the Roman Emperor Claudius has been housed in the Cabinet des Médailles in France since 1878. The inscription is said to have been “sent from Nazareth” to Paris. The writing-style on the inscription belongs to the earlier half of the first century.

The date and the source of the inscription leave a few unanswered questions. For example, why would the Emperor of a region covering one million square miles be so interested in establishing an edict for a region covering six square miles? And that question leads logically to another - was there a presumed incident of “body snatching” in that area to warrant such an edict? I find it interesting that the Roman Emperor’s edict may have come from Nazareth, the location of Jesus’ family home.

I believe the existence of this document suggests that some 15 years after the resurrection of Jesus, authorities were still grappling with matters surrounding the empty tomb. What options could best explain that profound predicament?  Was the charge of theft by the disciples possible? Such a stealing charge would constitute a serious crime, attracting even a death sentence.

As asked earlier, why didn’t the authorities arrest them if they felt the disciples committed a crime? In addition, the crucifixion had taken place in Jerusalem, some eighty miles away from Nazareth. Would they have disposed of the corpse in Jerusalem or traveled with it for a few days in the Near Eastern hot temperatures? Preposterous!

What would seem to be the best explanation for the missing body of Jesus, is the one recorded in the most reliable document in ancient literature – the New Testament. The New Testament writers contended that Jesus, who was crucified, came back to life on the third day following His death.

The New Testament writers further contended that for forty days the resurrected Jesus was seen by hundreds of persons in a variety of settings – in small groups, in personal encounters and even on one occasion by more than 500 persons at the same time.

Logically then, if those records were incorrect, why weren’t they challenged? Or, why did the authorities not locate the corpse and arrest the disciples for tampering with a dead body? Nothing like that was necessary because the evidence of the resurrected Jesus was overwhelming and irrefutable.

                                                                                                                                         

The resurrected Jesus was seen and heard for more than five weeks after the Roman authorities certified his death and burial. The Apostle Peter testified concerning these realities when he declared “God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact” (Acts 2:32). Did you know that because of the resurrection of Jesus, Christians who die as victims of COVID-19, will also experience resurrection?

Wow! That must bring a sense of hope to those who grieve.