Holy Saturday BBC Radio 4 Thought for the Day

Holy Saturday
TFTD
Rob Marshall

Good morning.
One of my most vivid memories of student days in Durham is a series of breakfast conversations I had with Archbishop Michael Ramsey – the 100th Archbishop of Canterbury. Bishop Michael loved the company of university students. He said that we kept his mind alive. And on one Holy Saturday, which is today in the Christian calendar, I remember he and I had a heated debate about how to communicate the reality of the resurrection to an increasingly doubtful generation.

The resurrection is the bringing together of everything anticipated of the Messiah. It is the turning point, the difference. Here is the specific moment when an answer to a centuries-old question about the meaning of life is offered – as St Paul says, once for all. Ramsey insisted that the events of Good Friday only made sense to Jesus' disciples after the resurrection had happened.

The key to grasping this reality is, of course, faith; faith that there is a God and that Easter marks the moment of true resurrection.

That death, rather than being the end of the story of the mystery of creation, is but the beginning.

The ability, or not, to grasp such faith remains the crux - the heart of the matter. As Alan Richardson wrote: “Christian theology has never suggested that the ‘fact’ of Christ’s resurrection could be known apart from faith.” The question for many is how to get hold of such a faith.

It’s a question which I frequently get asked on the tube when wearing my clerical collar. Is there really life after death? It is a question I can understand people asking as the funeral bells tolled this week in hill towns across central Italy. It’s a question I certainly asked again myself on Tuesday as I drove through Doncaster shortly after two young boys were charged with the attempted murder of another two boys; and also after a deeply lovely conversation with a teacher friend of mine in a hospice on Wednesday when we discussed the reality of suffering and the promise of glory. The question of faith is a constant refrain in many people’s lives.

Life is not without doubt. It comes to all of us at times. Life is a profound and fascinating journey offering many insights along the way and it certainly isn’t easy. But for the Christian, waiting today for the new light of Easter at dawn tomorrow, there is real expectation and real hope in the air.

A firm belief in the resurrection is often the culmination of a lifetime of serious and challenging episodes, pointing to a faith which transfigures, changes beyond recognition, all that fear.

A very happy Easter to you all.