“If Christ is not raised, then our gospel is null and void, and so is your faith…If it is for this life only that Christ has given us hope, we of all men are most to be pitied.”

Thus says St. Paul in his first letter to the church in Corinth. The Christian faith is founded on the Easter faith. The song by Richard Avery and Donald Marsh puts it most succinctly:

“Every morning is Easter morning           from now on!

             Evr’y day’s resurrection day,

 the past is over and gone!” 

We might wish that sometimes our faith was as crystal clear as St Paul declares.

A few years ago a survey suggested that even among Christians who go to church not everyone believes that at the resurrection, Jesus really rose from the dead. It is a belief that causes difficulties and yet is crucial to being a Christian.  

The gospels are not specific about what happened when Jesus rose from the dead. The event is shrouded in mystery. This should really not be disturbing or cause difficulties for our faith.

One of the most important signs is the experience of other people particularly of the Jewish people as recorded in the Old Testament. In St. John’s Gospel after the resurrection we are told the disciples “…as yet did not know the scriptures, that he must rise from the dead.” 

Resurrection perplexes us because it is beyond out human experience. We understand birth and death; we have seen them. But rising to eternal and new life is beyond our comprehension.

God has given us the Holy Spirit who works in us to deepen our understanding if we are sensitive to the signs in word, sacrament, our brothers and sisters and in the creation around us – all part of God’s revelation of his glory and handiwork which includes the resurrection life.

As the disciples realised Jesus had risen, their own confusion turned not on intellectual difficulties but on the fact they had totally misunderstood his teaching and the signs he had given them. They were afraid for themselves and felt guilty they had let him down and forsaken him.

As so often in scripture we hear those most comforting words (used 365 times in the bible) ‘don’t be afraid.’

It is the same for us. So often we treat Jesus as little more than a wise good man. Some accept him as one of the great prophets of world religion. Like the pre-resurrection disciples we think of a man with no future and expect him to die; and we run away when the going gets tough.

Easter proclaims again that Jesus did not stay dead. He is alive.

resurrection when the signs of the new life we can understand and trust are all around us and within us day after day.

The really good news is that this is not just a once a year celebration. The resurrection of Jesus is for every day… “every morning is Easter morning!”