He Is Risen

Many countries with a history of Christian culture will, over these few days, celebrate a Christian holiday known the world over as Easter. While not everone agrees to its cultural significance or even its historicity, this much is clear- the story of the resurrection has left an indelible mark in the landscape of ideas. And ideas are what make the very fabric of history. But an idea alone can do nothing. An idea has to be clothed in flesh, it has to have hands and feet, and it has to walk among us.

Easter and Christmas are the two major events in the Christian calendar in which we remember that God came into the world he had created and in effect became a character in his own book. These two events chronicle the entering into, and the exit of the divine realm as distinct to the world of the flesh. Even while these two events cover the short life of Jesus, they are in fact the crux of human history. It is the distinctively Christian view that this life, and his consequent death and resurrection infuses all of the history of human life with its ultimate meaning and purpose.

Human ideas are in themselves ephemeral, fleeting things, like sparks in an updraft they may glow all the more brighter in fierce resistance to the eveloping cosmic dark. But their hope is soon dimmed and they are no more. But God's idea is different....

The Anvil

Last eve I paused before a blacksmith’s door

And heard the anvil ring the vesper chime

And looking in I saw old hammers on the floor

Worn by the beating years of time

“How many anvils have you Sir” said I

“To wear and batter these hammers so?”

“Just one” said he,

Then with a twinkle in his eyes

“The anvil wears the hammers out you know”

And so I thought the Anvil of God’s Word

For ages sceptic blows have beat upon

Yet through the noise of falling blows was 

heard

The Anvil is unharmed, the hammers gone…

An Easter Message from The Prime Minister of Great Britain, bravo: