Bishop's Diary (From Worcester News)

Bishop's Diary

8:31am Tuesday 1st April 2008

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I hope that you have had a very happy Easter. More than that, I hope that you have been able to contemplate what Easter is about – the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
The resurrection has been in the news a fair bit recently.
Publicity has been given to the fact that a survey found that more than 60 per cent of the population of this country believe in the resurrection (including, curiously, some atheists).
All these people are, in fact, in good company.
A leading philosopher, Professor Jorgen Habermas, has given several interviews on the radio about the tour he undertook before Easter with the Bishop of Durham, Dr Tom Wright, in which they explained that the resurrection is not one of several impossible things that you might be asked, like Alice in Wonderland, to believe before breakfast.
The evidence for the resurrection is as good as that for any historical event.
In a substantial book on the subject entitled the Resurrection of the Son of God, the Bishop of Durham presents a closely argued and meticulously researched argument to the effect that the empty tomb and the ‘meetings’ with Jesus, when combined, present us with “not only a sufficient condition for the rise of early Christian belief but also, it seems, a necessary one.
“Nothing else that historians have come up with has the
power to explain the phenomenon before us.”
It was the fact of the empty tomb and the appearances of the risen Jesus that turned his friends from the dejected and demoralised group of people they were after his death into a huge force that changed the world.
It filled them with joy and it has done the same for countless believers since.
It has given hope to people over two thousand years to believe that God will not let evil and death have the last word.
It has inspired them to give their lives for God and for good – and still does.
No wonder the majority of the people of this country believe in it.