Ressurection

FORWARD

Driving home late at night, I caught a snatch of an interview on the radio. A learned and obviously esteemed man was asked his views on religion. "I suppose that I am almost a Christian," he said. "I find the Sermon on the Mount to be the most sublime passage I have read anywhere. If Christians would just live by this and forget the other emotional and magical bits of the New Testament, then I would be a full-blown Christian." I am sure that central to the "emotional and magical bits" to which he was referring is the resurrection of Jesus.

The station faded and I fell to thinking, "Was he right? Was the resurrection of Jesus superfluous to the majestic scope of his inspired teaching? By insisting on talking about it again and again, was the Church turning people away who find that this story is not credible?"

However, my life and the life of the world has convinced me that the Sermon on the Mount was not enough. The problems confronting the human race and the pain in individuals' lives, my own and others, is such that nothing but a crucified and risen Saviour will do. The people who stand at the heart of the intractable wars in the world are not short of knowledge of the Sermon on the Mount, or its equivalent in another religion. But this head knowledge of fine sentiments does not lessen their hate or bring them closer to reconciliation. I think of those whom I know personally, who suffer as I write, and I know they need something more than fine words about how to live.

They need someone who can penetrate the very core of their aloneness.They need someone who can meet them in their suffering. They need someone who can walk with them through the valley of death. Some need someone who can guide them out of the hopeless and poisonous maze of hate and self-hate.

Call it "emotional and magical" if you will, but of one thing I am sure; nothing less than a personal confrontation with the radical and explosive force of the death and resurrection of Jesus can possibly meet their needs. More than lofty ideas, this leads to a living relationship - a relationship with a loving God who has faced and overcome all they face, and more. I have found it to be so in my own life and I believe it is true for the entire human race.

Dick Tripp's booklet speaks to me with compelling force. It rings true. It will serve many as an introduction to the central fact of the Christian faith. Readers who grasp this message, or allow this truth to grasp them, will find themselves on the threshold of an exciting new way of thinking and living.

Rev Stan Stewart Christian Educator 
Minister of the Uniting Church of Australia 
and the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand, 
Paeroa, New Zealand