Dear Friends,

How glorious is the Easter message, and all the blessings that it brings - Jesus risen from the dead. Even more wonderful is the certainty of it. It is not just a religious idea or beautiful thought. It is not just a spiritual reality. It is not an imagining of what we would like to believe, but it is a fact of history. Thus the blessings which flow from it are true and sure and certain. They are real and can be relied on. Let us grasp this and hold on to it.

It is this certainty that I would like to share with you and affirm in my letter this month. Something of it I expressed in the Easter leaflets which were delivered around the parish.

This certainty is what makes the Christian faith the sure and only real faith. Whereas other faiths are based on the thoughts or visions of its founders, Christianity is based on the facts and acts of its founder, even Jesus Christ. Ours is a faith which is based on solid facts of history - events which really happened and can be verified and proved. Thus our faith is not some subjective feeling or idea, but the result of happenings in history all can see are true.

The resurrection of Jesus is a fact of history. It happened. Jesus was truly killed on the cross, and just as truly he rose from death on the first Easter morning. The tomb was guarded by unbelievers who were seeking to prevent any idea of resurrection, but the guards were overcome by angels, the stone closing the tomb of Jesus rolled away, and Jesus came forth, first folding his grave clothes and placing them carefully on the stone where he lay. This was verified by the soldiers guarding the tomb, although the Jewish priests told them to lie and deny it. It was also verified by the disciples and women who went to the tomb, and saw it empty with the linen clothes lying folded up neatly.

The evidence does not cease here. There were many witnesses to the fact Jesus was alive from the dead. Witnesses that were convinced by their own eyes, when they had not expect the resurrection and still found it difficult to accept as possible. These witnesses were sound in mind and had no intention of making up a story. Indeed they had accepted Jesus was dead, and their hopes were at an end. The risen presence of Jesus came as a joyous shock.

Such a story could not be sustained if it had been a myth or a lie or an invention. All the authorities, both Jew and Roman, had an interest in proving that the resurrection did not happen. They could not do it, and could not refute it. The disciples who testified to the resurrection were ordinary simple people who could not have successfully hatched a plot to deceive, and maintained it. If the resurrection of Jesus had been a lie, then it would have been exposed by now. But it has not been exposed, because it is no lie but a fact of history.

Chapter 15 of St. Paul's first letter to the Corinthians is so powerful in this respect. It is plain that the Apostle was meeting the same natural scepticism concerning the resurrection that rational humanity is ever revealing. He refers to this in verses 12 to 19, where he points out that if people denied that there was no resurrection, as some people evidently were, they were also denying that Jesus rose from the dead. He also points out that if Jesus did not rise from the dead, there is no Christianity and all is a lie. His answer is straight forward. Paul says in verse 20 "But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead".

How can he be so sure. Simply he points to the evidence - to the witnesses which there were who saw Jesus alive after he had risen. He gives just some of these witnesses in verses 3 to 8 of this chapter. He could have chosen more witnesses, but what he does tell us is of one very significant occasion when Jesus appeared to over 500 people at one time. He presses his point by saying that many of them were still alive when he was writing his letter, and they could be asked and questioned and consulted.

No court of law could deny the overwhelming evidence of the witnesses to Jesus resurrection. Those who deny this witness are being blind and refusing what is evidently true. They are like someone who may say I don't believe anybody has gone to the moon, even though the evidence that they have done so in our time is unquestionable.

What this means is that we can be certain of all that follows from the fact of Jesus resurrection. We know for certain that Jesus has power over life and death. We know he can give resurrection and eternal life. We know he has taken away the power and inevitableness of death. We know that he can save from eternal death and hell. We can believe his promise to give eternal life to all who believe in him, and the promise that he is now reserving a place in heaven for everyone who believes in him. We can look at death unafraid, and know it is the gateway to a more glorious life. We know that our bodies also will be resurrected and be totally new. Above all we know that Jesus is God as he claimed, because only God has power over life and death. Gloriously we know that Jesus completed entirely the work he came to do, which was to take the punishment of death and hell for our sins. The fact he rose from death proved that he had completed that work of taking our punishment, and that our sins are completely atoned for.

These and other blessings of the gospel are sure and certain, not simply because they are doctrines that Christianity teaches, but because they follow from the resurrection of Jesus and are based on this objective fact of history. Our faith is based not on ideas, but facts and actions which took place in time.

Let us rejoice concerning the certainty of our faith. Let us return to the fact of the resurrection of Jesus whenever we find doubts rising in our minds. There is nothing more certain than that Jesus rose from the dead. Because of this there is nothing safer and more certain than to rest our lives upon Jesus and all he promises in the Gospel. In a world full of uncertainty and broken pledges, how wonderful to have such a rock of unshakeable truth to rest our lives upon. We have a wonderful and glorious and all sufficient Saviour - Jesus Christ.

Your servant for Christ's sake,