FEW people will not have experienced both exhilaration or despair – the birth of a child and the death of a dearly loved one, a wonderful holiday and the loss of a job, a friendship made and a friendship lost.
Perhaps you can in a moment think of the two that immediately occur to you. You might both smile and weep at the same moment.
Last Sunday in church we read of Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem, with the crowds shouting Hosanna and waving Palm branches. It would have been a great moment, but a few days later comes Good Friday, when the sky turns black and celebration is turned to execution. And this could have been the end; in fact, some of the disciples had all but given up and gone home.
But the Christian faith is founded on the belief that Jesus, whom human beings put to death, is in fact alive and with us, and is a force for good in the world and in our lives.
Some will of course scoff at all of this, and no one can prove it to you – you will know only when you put your trust and faith in him, about whom some people 2,000 years ago said (and we today say): ‘The Lord is risen; he is Risen indeed!’
