Words from Bede Circuit
Dear Friends,
It was a few years ago in a big lecture hall at Nottingham University. Rev Dr David Wilkinson (nowadays Rev Professor and principal of St John’s College Durham as well as being a Methodist minister, Astro-physicist and good North-East lad) had been giving a lecture about science and Christian faith and was now taking questions. Most of the questions, asked by postgraduate physics students mostly, I didn’t really understand, let alone David’s answers. Then someone asked him ‘Can you think of a potential scientific discovery that would undermine your Christian faith?’ He thought for a few moments, then he said ‘It won’t happen, but if someone could show me the bones of Jesus, that would be a problem’.
David was demonstrating the truth of what St Paul said: ‘If Christ has not been raised to life our message is worthless and so is your faith’ (1 Corinthians 15:14). And, like Judaism, Christianity is profoundly a materialistic religion - materialistic in the sense that material, physical matter, is crucially important, hence the sacrament in bread and wine. Therefore his resurrection has to have a physical reality, not just a spiritual one, and the same will be true for all of us! The empty tomb matters, Jesus’ body was not there, it had been raised to a new, different, physical reality.
Without the resurrection Jesus’ death would have simply gone down in history, if it had been noted at all, as yet another unjust execution, another politico/religious injustice, the murder of a good person. But the resurrection confirmed what we know to be true – Jesus who died is and was the Lord of history, the Word of God, and his death shows us the depths of God’s love for us, the extent to which God was prepared to go to bring us back into relationship with him. In Tom Wright’s memorable phrase: ‘On the cross the power of love defeated the love of power’. And that victory we know to be real because of the resurrection.
How much does our world need to know the reality of that love, to see it in places like Yemen (the forgotten war) as well as Ukraine, in our streets where so many are struggling to survive, in God’s wonderful creation, which is being systematically destroyed for greed and the love of power. God has put his love into our hearts through his Holy Spirit and his command to us is to go and share it, to show it, to tell about it.
Hallelujah – Christ is risen! Let’s make his love real in our sad and broken world!
Easter blessings to you and yours
Paul
Prayer meetings continue on zoom Wednesday mornings.