Easter Joy and a Facebook Shock.

This morning I went out to buy our weekly newspaper (which has the best TV guide any newspaper can offer) and then went on my daily walks. Such walks being vitally necessary to replace the regular swim and reduced cycling schedules, especially those weekly eight-mile round trips to church and back. And to replace my weekly session at Starbucks with its lovely and creamy, calorie-rich cappuccino coffee. Therefore, whether my health/weight would benefit - gaining the first and losing the second - only time would tell during this lockdown.

It was a beautiful morning. The sunshine bringing out the best in colours, such as the glossy green leaves of the Rhododendron lining either one or both sides of the footpath, various trees in the full bloom of white flowers while others have just budded into leaf, the green lawns matted with a carpet of daisies, and the warmth of the air allowing me to go out in Summer attire, that is, in shorts and a coloured tank-top or vest.

Easter. Or as someone calls it, Resurrection Day. It's perhaps the favourite time of the year, with Spring Equinox not far behind and the days continue to lengthen and the weather bathed in the warm sunshine. And while this coronavirus lockdown continues with no apparent end in sight, I was actually wondering whether God is teasing us. That is to say, giving health and beauty to the rest of his creation whilst our own health remains under threat.

Or could it be, as the Bible indicates, that through the beauty of his creation, God is trying to speak to us, encouraging us to turn to him, having already reconciled himself to us through the Death, Burial and Resurrection of his Son, Jesus Christ, to which this public holiday is all about? And so, for the first time since 1973, there is no church I can go to, nowhere to meet together to acknowledge and worship with fellow believers. True enough, throughout the years, there were some when I made off to the coast, particularly in the Bournemouth or Swanage area of East Dorset after finding a suitable hotel on a typical off-the-street walk-in method. And I was never disappointed. 

Indeed, over the years I have questioned whether our Lord Jesus was crucified on a Friday. The Roman Catholic Church has always taught so, and the vast majority of Protestant churches have always done so, too. But if there is any source that would throw the spanner into the works, it had to be the Bible itself. And to add to the apparent frustration, there is only one verse in the entire New Testament, Matthew 12:40, which are words spoken by Jesus himself, and it's not repeated in any other of the four Gospels. He was referring to the prophet Jonah in the Old Testament, who spent three days and three nights inside the belly of an unspecified marine creature after being thrown overboard from a ship whilst running away from God's specific command to visit the city of Ninevah, Jonah 1:17.

Here, Jesus makes a comparison. Just as Jonah was hidden from all life for three days and three nights, so Jesus himself will be "in the bowels of the earth" for the same duration. Of course, I want to go along with all other Christians and remember his crucifixion on Good Friday, as I grew up to believe. And every year, I always made an effort to attend a service on Good Friday But even from boyhood, with the assumption that the Saturday Sabbath is the very next day after his crucifixion, somehow I had an instinctive feeling that not all added up nicely. How I wished it did. Since a Friday crucifixion followed by a Sunday Resurrection does not add up to three days and three nights. Instead, his burial only adds up to two nights - Friday night and Saturday night.

The greater majority of Christians accept this without question. If all the churches taught this for nearly two millennia, then who am I to question it? Perhaps Matthew 12:40 is a copying error? If so, then how can I trust the rest of the Bible for being reliable? Indeed, an error of this kind, a quotation from Jesus, would mean that Jonah himself (or his biographer) erred when he wrote three days and three nights hid undersea. If Jonah had gotten it wrong, so did Jesus. Such doesn't lend much credit for inspiration!

There is always the idea that the High Day of John 19:31 was a reference to a special Sabbath, itself distinct from the normal Saturday Sabbath as being the first day of Unleavened Bread, a Jewish holiday lasting a full week gotten from Exodus 12:1-30. If this special Sabbath fell on a Friday, this would have meant two Sabbaths, Friday and Saturday, one after the other. If that was the case, that would mean that Jesus was Crucified on a Thursday, which was the Day of Preparation, when leaven was removed from every Jewish household across Israel and beyond.

Unleavened Bread.

Jesus died at the same moment when all the Passover lambs were slain, to be roasted and then eaten later that night, which was by then the first day of Unleavened Bread, a special Sabbath or High Day which was a Friday. Maybe that was why the apostle Paul called his Lord Jesus Christ "the Passover Lamb" of 1 Corinthians 5:7.

This seems to be a worthwhile study, and from it, I personally accept that Jesus was crucified on a Thursday, to die shortly before nightfall on that day. But this is something I need to keep for myself - or just share on this blog. I know that such an idea will be resisted by just about every Christian believer who either know me personally or who reads this blog. In the face of universal church authority, I would be perceived as just an oddity, a quack, one of those nerdy types who is off his rocker and therefore fully deserve by them to be ignored and not taken any notice of.

Maybe that is not as bad as it first looks. To God only am I accountable. If advocating a Thursday crucifixion will earn a stern rebuke from Heaven...

So be it. At least I can explain why I believe what I believe. But my biggest concern is that thereafter, no one will take my blogs seriously enough to bother reading them. I would be categorised as quackery, probably on the same level as believing that a small phial of water can be classed as holistic medicine, even if there is only one molecule of elixir in the entire phial, to give healing benefits.

Holistic medicine or not, for me, the historicity of the Crucifixion, and the timing of his death, his duration of burial and his Resurrection on that early Sunday morning even before daybreak is very central to my faith. Even Paul knew this by writing that if Christ had not risen, then my faith is in vain, without a purpose - 1 Corinthians 15:14. With our health under threat with a coronavirus infection with my beloved on special high risk, then believing in the historicity of Christ's final moments is absolutely central, allowing everything else to fall into proper perspective. And that includes the possibility that he was crucified on a Thursday, or the fifth day of the week.

It comes in as very supportive and edifying when in such a time when due to the lockdown, all dentists in our area have shut down and shortly after, Alex develops a severe toothache with pain spreading upwards towards her cranium. Earlier in the week, her pain was so severe that she begged me to phone 111. They believed that her condition was severe enough to warrant an ambulance. After the paramedics had found out that she overdosed (slightly) on both Paracetamol and Oramorph, they insisted on a trip to A&E where she will be further assessed. Due to the pandemic, I had to remain at home, for the first time ever. About six hours later she arrived home by taxi after being discharged without treatment, endorsing our opinion that the trip was a waste of time and effort.

Fortunately, her dentist has gotten through to us from his private mobile and prescribed antibiotics. As she gets closer to halfway through her course, the pain still comes and goes, but (with the help of painkillers) it's now less intense. The whole point of this episode is the timing of this entire scenario. It's as if she's a victim of some spiritual trickery or mockery, to make our lives as miserable and stressfully hard as can be. But her own faith in God is to be commended, much having been taught by me over the last twenty years of marriage and her more recent commitment to read the Bible.

Daily reports on nearly a thousand deaths with Coronavirus in intensive care each day, here in the UK, I find so distressing to the spirit. With the world looking so dark and grim, the Easter holidays should be a good time, a reminder that the light of Christ is shining, and God commands that all people everywhere should come to repentance and receive the eternal life which is on offer to all those who believe. If only Easter would shout all the louder! If only people would see the light of Christ with his arms open to receive them, and run to him, even from the fears and anxieties this pandemic is bringing. Yet what do I find?

A discussion about Brexit on Facebook! And that with the typical Brexiteer's insensitive response: To hell with Brussels, we are leaving at the end of the year, end of! This was amid a discussion whether, due to talks delayed by the pandemic, the intermittent period should be extended into next year, or should it still end on schedule without an agreement between London and Brussels? The Brexiteer has expressed his opinion that he couldn't care less about the talks. To him, nationalism is all or nothing. To be honest, I was shocked to read this during these sorrowful times.

Cry! Cry! Cry unto my soul, cry! Somehow, in this present distress, I don't think this is the right time to discuss such an issue. Why not? Well, let's see. Up to a thousand patients confined in intensive care have lost their lives with coronavirus each day here in the UK alone. That alone is very distressing. I think of the many families who have lost their loved one. I try to put myself into their place. I imagine my beloved wife lying in intensive care, unconscious, with a ventilator pipe connecting a machine to the inside of her trachea. She lies there alone, longing for my company had she remained conscious, but the hospital still forbids me to be by her side. Then her liver gives in. Immediately the nurse notices that her cardiac monitor is displaying a straight line and emitting a constant hum. The doctor arrives to give confirmation. Presently, I receive a phone call from the hospital, a very apologetic message to inform me that I'm now a widower.

This could be real. The NHS has informed her that she is on the high-risk category due to having cancer. At present, she remains at home under a shielding programme. But one mistake from me, who is allowed to go out for essentials, could still pass the virus to her.

But thanks to Easter, she would be one of the fortunate ones. At her passing, she would be in the arms of her Lord in Heaven. As she enters glory, all her pains would be over. Over for eternity, along with all the other problems the stresses of life had thrown at her. She would enjoy her final victory. It would soften the terrible blow I would have suffered at the news and the easing of the dread by Christ's presence from a very lonely existence, especially if our church services are still grounded by the pandemic.

Thank you, Lord God, for sending your dear Son as a once-and-for-all-time sacrifice to atone for our sins. And after three days and three nights confined in a rock tomb, you rise victorious from the dead, defeating both sin and death, and enabling us to receive eternal life through faith in your Son.

Thank you, Lord, for Easter.

A Word of Encouragement...

In many ways, I can be thankful for being a UK citizen, having been born here, even from wholly Italian parents who were both post-war immigrants. For example, we have the National Health Service, or the NHS, a free-to-the-point-of-use institution readily available to offer treatment to all kinds of illness, disease and infirmities. And we live under a democracy, a system where all its governing policies are directed by the will of the people, in direct contrast to a top-down dictatorship. And we enjoy the freedom of religion, unlike in Islamic countries where if someone was to differ in opinion would result in flogging, imprisonment or even a death penalty.

But no country is perfect as, in a fallen world, such idealist perfectionism cannot exist. And as such, for example, our densely-populated land contributes to air and sea pollution, mainly from transport and discarded waste, which many say is adding to climate change. But at least, on the good side, there is always a shop nearby (or in my case, two superstores) where groceries and other essentials can be bought and stocked up. And water, fuel and electric power are as easy to use as turning on a tap or plugging into a socket. And a more recent innovation is the Internet, with which I'm now able to express my thoughts into worldwide public readership, which was nothing but a dream, a product of wishful thinking only up to a generation ago. 

But does all this really make us feel happy and content? No doubt, many are happy. But anyone can feel sad, lonely, depressed, helpless, even if their homes are well-stocked with everything they need and their bank balance is reasonably healthy. As one U.S. medical doctor once wrote, most illnesses and diseases, including cancer and heart failure, are caused initially by excess stress, worry, fear, hatred, bitterness, resentment, and prolonged anger. If all this is true, and this doctor received plenty of support from his colleagues across America, then it's no wonder that over here, the NHS has been stretched to its limits throughout the past few years.

Like one recent afternoon when my beloved developed a severe, stabbing pain at her chest region, close to where she had cancer. It was not long after her chemotherapy treatment had ended, and we both suspected that this pain may be connected with her cancer treatment. So an ambulance was called and she was taken to the Accident and Emergency (A&E) department of the same hospital where she was being treated for her cancer. I was horrified when we were confronted with a long line of gurneys lining the corridor leading to the Majors cubicles, all of them each occupied by a patient waiting to be seen and treated. Therefore, it was several hours before she was seen by a consultant, although much praise goes to the team of nurses who looked after all the patients in the queue whilst waiting.

Of course, if an elderly lady or gent fell down the stairs and fractured a bone in doing so, that does not mean that the patient was in any negative mood at the time of the accident. He or she could have been in a more jovial mood before the fall. But I couldn't help thinking that the majority of patients in that queue are there as a result of an initial upset mind, some of them stretching over many years. Fortunately for my wife, the cause of the pain was not too serious and wasn't connected with the cancer treatment.

And so, it's this present Coronavirus pandemic which has, in a way, brought me to my senses on how fortunate we all are compared to previous generations. To read or to hear that several hundred more had died of the disease each day is very distressing. For the rest of us who might have had a very mild form of the illness, along with those who haven't had it (yet) - the suppression of our personal freedom is something of a culture shock. To be told by the Government to stay indoors and not travel to the coast or to a national park, especially under a burst of warm Spring sunshine, is certainly not the British way of living! Neither is the long queue outside the superstore doors or to stand or sit not less than two metres apart. Thus, a friendly or respectful handshake, let alone a hug, is seen as equally dangerous, as if risking a bite by a dog infected with the rabies virus.

As the pandemic takes hold across the land, churches are no longer meeting together physically at a given venue. Instead, "virtual services" broadcast live on the Internet has replaced proper services. Scripture quotes begin to appear frequently on Facebook. Of all quotes, it looks to me that Psalm 91 is the most often quoted. It details the great protection given by God himself to anyone who trusts in him. It contains the verses:

A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you.

You will only observe with your eyes and see the punishment of the wicked.

Psalm 91:7-8.

It's the same kind of wording which is also found in Psalm 139:19-24, and within many other psalms, where David in particular, cries out for vengeance upon the wicked and to let them face justice whilst, at the same time, prays for his own deliverance from his enemies, the forgiveness of his sins, and his own salvation. Indeed, anyone reading such psalms can be forgiven for accusing him of a kind of self-righteousness, a Pharisaic attitude involving self-piety whilst judging and cursing everybody else. 

King David the Psalmist.

However, the evil people he's referring to are haters of God with a seared conscience, and since they are without any moral guidance, are out to exploit and steal from others, especially the defenceless poor, forcing them to suffer loss, bringing on physical and mental pain, and even be killed, while the villains are benefiting and getting rich from their victim's spoils.

Yet I can identify how David might have felt. The sort of people who annoy me most are scammers, those fraudsters who trick their victims into parting with their hard-earned savings by using sophisticated methods, usually over the phone, to deceive. And thus gathering wealth by dishonest means, causing their victims, mostly senior citizens, to suffer agonising losses. Then these thieves go on expensive holidays, party, and buy top-of-the-market cars such as the Lamborghini. Like David, I too wish them to be brought to justice.

Wishing such scammers to be brought to justice is one thing, but for the believing saint, will he be fully protected by God from any threat or affliction? Is Psalm 91 a guaranteed protection against general suffering?

Last Sunday, a preach at Ascot Life Church was delivered through the Internet, focusing on Psalm 91, probably as a result of the constant appearing of this psalm on Facebook. The question was: Will God really protect from all harm those who trust in him, worship and depend on him? Yes? - Er, No. And he was absolutely correct.

I have only my own testimony to prove that true believers are not immune to harm. Where the hospital has risen to the point of being our second home, one has only to read 2 Corinthians 4:8-9 and 6:3-10, where Paul the apostle lists his sufferings, including being flogged, while he was on his mission to preach the Gospel and form new churches across the Roman Empire, and visiting other, already established churches, particularly in the Macedonian area of northern Greece. In turn, Hebrews 11:35-38 lists the sufferings many Old Testament saints had to endure as they ministered to the ancient Israelites, even to the point of being stoned to death.

Then there is the case of Job in the Old Testament. He lived approximately at the same time as Abraham, and like the Hebrew patriarch, Job was a righteous man with a strong and reverent faith in God, who showed hospitality to strangers and always interceded for his sons, lest they fall into sin. He could be classed as a Bedouin, a man who lived in a desert tent, yet he was also very rich, possessing many flocks and herds.

Then one day all his livestock was stolen from him by a gang of marauding bandits, with only one shepherd left to tell him of his loss. Soon after this, another arrived to announce that all his sons were killed by a collapsing roof of the house where they were partying. Yet, when his grieving wife and mother advised him to curse God and die, his response was to rebuke her, telling her not to be such a foolish woman, and then acknowledged that God has every right to give and to take away. Soon after this, he fell ill, and his ailment worsened to the point where he was at death's door. Yet he did not waiver on his faith. 

During his distress, three friends arrived at his tent to grieve with him. At first, all four sat in silence. Yet when a discussion between them eventually arose, neither could understand why such a righteous man had to suffer such intensity as he did. As Job began to protest his innocence, the three friends began to accuse him of some secret sin or willful wrongdoing. Yet while all four agreed that God's thoughts are way above any human thinking and utterly beyond reproach, yet amid his sorrow, intensified by the accusations thrown at him by his three friends, he declared:

I know that my Redeemer lives, and in the end, he will stand upon the earth.

And after my skin has been destroyed yet in my flesh I will see God.

I will see him - with my own eyes - I, and not another.

How my heart yearns within me!

Job 19:25-27. 

When reading such testimonies, whenever we are going through distress, and both of us have been through many such occasions, Job is always the one who has set an example. Other than Jesus Christ himself, whenever Alex is lying on a hospital gurney at A&E, Job often comes into my mind, especially during the long wait before the consultant eventually arrives.

When considering all these things - the suffering believers have to endure, then how truthful is Psalm 91 when it promises full protection from every kind of calamity which befall unbelievers? Last Sunday's preach has shed some light on this, which I have found to be helpful. The ultimate victory of Psalm 91 lies in our eternal state, an eternity in God's presence in Heaven.

As I write, a definite pattern emerges. The pattern is this: When a believer in Jesus Christ crucified, buried and risen, has to endure sufferings, whether physical, mentally, or emotionally, they will always end in victory for the believer.

Final Victory.

Therefore, does God offer protection to the believer against all adversity? The answer is a resounding Yes, but it applies to the soul and spirit. For once the sinner confesses with his mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord, and believes in his heart that God has raised Him from the dead (Romans 10:9-13) - he becomes a new creation, a child of God, forever adopted into his family. Yes, the body will die and goes to the grave, but the spirit and soul will go to be with Christ.

Once saved always saved.

And physical death is the believer's final victory.  

Education. Intelligence or Vanity?

It was a typical weekday cleaning windows under dull, drizzly weather, giving the air a melancholic feel, when the turn came to call at one particular house on a street of privately owned homes. This particular elderly gentleman had recently lost his wife to illness, cancer, I believe. He answered my knock on his door.

I can't understand why you're out here in this atrocious weather! I'm not sure about allowing you to work on a day like this, he said.

Cleaning windows on a damp, dreary Autumn day was not exactly like spending a day at a carnival on a warm Summer's day, or the excitement felt while boarding a long-haul flight for a Round-the-World backpacking trip. Rather, it was either this or watching my wife and myself go hungry and into debt. Therefore there was no surprise on his part for my feeling of irritableness.

Atrocious weather? This? I replied. Remember what happened in New Orleans. If wind and rain can literally wipe a city off the map, then that is atrocious weather! Not this - as I waved my hand around the moist-ridden air. The client relented and allowed me to proceed with the task at hand.

I was referring to Hurricane Katrina, which formed over the Atlantic Ocean on August 23rd 2005, and passed over New Orleans nearly a week later on the 29th, taking with it up to 1,836 lives as it swirled over the city at 175 mph. The talk I had with this English gentleman was just a few weeks later, and therefore still fresh on our minds.

The effects of Hurricane Katrina, August 2005.

I believe that after 37 years of manual work, that is from the day I left school in 1968 to that dismal day in 2005, I have toughened up to the point of looking at adversity or even at danger with a smile. Maybe that was why such a negative attitude from this elderly gentleman took me by surprise, especially if he was around during the War or even having fought in it. Then, having lost his beloved so recently after decades of happy marriage would make him feel emotionally vulnerable, wouldn't it? Indeed, on that day I should have been more sensitive to his point of view rather than constantly worrying about home finances, even if I was always the sole breadwinner.

This mental toughening up against the knocks life throws at us, maybe that was why, while onboard the United Airlines flight to New York from London in 1995, one of the air stewardesses gasped, and said how brave I was, after I have spoken to her about the excitement lying ahead as I make my way to California with a backpack over my shoulders. Her reaction had indeed taken me by surprise. However, it was during a normal day at work, standing on a sloping roof while cleaning a window above it, which tested my mettle, yet was part and parcel of my job from which I received no praise at all.

As such, media stories of students committing suicide have always been a puzzlement to me! The majority of students who commit suicide is male. However, the latest case is of this British female from Milton Keynes, who so recently fallen out of a light aircraft while flying over the forests of Madagascar. At first, I thought that she was a victim of a terrible accident involving the plane door flying open mid-air and sucking her out. But it turned out that she opened the door herself and jumped out, despite the attempted restraint by both the pilot and another passenger.

The student, who attended Cambridge University, was out on a project examining a rare species of crab when she suffered a panic attack. She contacted her parents back in the UK, and they either advised her to return home just three or four days into her month-long trip. Or they might have tried to encourage her to stay and finish her project. Apparently, a heated argument developed, which on one hand may be an indication that either she wanted to cut short her trip and return home, or on the other hand, she was unwilling to return home so soon. But either way, she then leapt to her death whilst flying from her venue to the international airport.

The whole scenario beggars belief! Here she was, a student at Cambridge University, meant to enjoy one of the greatest privileges life can offer - to study and train to be a scientist, and to work in a laboratory, which would have been the envy of one such as myself who had to scrape a living outside in the cold, wind and rain. 

Yet she was not alone. Far from it. Rather, it follows other stories of undergraduates committing suicide as well as many more suffering from mental illness of some sort. And as I have already mentioned, the majority of such cases is male, which fits in with the overall majority of suicides across the nation. Our culture strongly encourages, if not actually demand, that the British man must keep his emotions bottled up, to keep up the image of stoicism, making self-harm an easier option than talking to someone who could help. But in the case of undergraduates, whom I perceive as very fortunate to enter further education in the first place, I have to admit and ask: What's going on?

This sort of thing was totally unknown in my day when I had to push a broom across the factory shop floor and endure smut, quite a bit of teasing, even verbal bullying. Yet I never considered suicide, but, as I realised later, as part of a process to toughen me up in readiness to face a challenging world.

The light aircraft in flight during the jump.

But here I had to be honest. When I found myself at work as a machinist in a precision engineering company in the 1970s, I did have an eye of envy towards the adjoining office staff. Their smart dress commanded far greater respect from society. They were the ones who did well at school and passed both GCE 'O' Level and 'A' Level exams while still at school, and landed good jobs as a result, even without having to graduate. A university graduate holding a degree was, back in those days, someone to be revered. Maybe this trend of "degree inflation" which affected more recent years might have coincided with the rise of mental health issues and eventually suicide. In other words, a degree nowadays is hardly worth the paper it's printed on, so the media tell us. Could that, along with the eye-watering tuition fees, be the reason why this lovely young woman ended her life so dramatically?

It is from this greater respect and a keener interest given by society to graduates and those who hold careers in the profession which at this point I would like to ask: What do you think of this blog? Is it well written? If by chance, you think this and all my other blogs are well written, then this is a result of constant practice, backed by my enjoyment of reading. Yes, I did attend evening class to study the English Language GCE 'O' Level at a local college some years after leaving school, and I managed to scrape through with a pass. Yet this was enough for a foundation to build my writing skills on afterwards. Mainly by reading other people's work and using them as examples to build my own experience.

This was not done with any reluctance. I recall as a young boy sitting at a table and writing letters to my relatives living overseas. How I thoroughly enjoyed it. And unlike many in my class, I did not find writing a necessary burden one must bear while wearing school uniform. I find the ability to string words together, a wonderful privilege given to me by God, and left with a responsibility to nourish this God-given ability.

And here is a sorry truth. If I was a graduate myself, I would have had a much larger number of page views than I presently have. Instead, I know of several graduates belonging to local churches who don't read these blogs. They give various reasons for this - they don't have the time, they are too busy, they are irrelevant to them, it's not their style. But none would give the honest truth, and the honest truth is this: Reading my blogs will rock their egos. That is to say, I pose some kind of threat. After all, someone with my background is not supposed to create anything to this standard. Instead, I should know my place on the social and academic ladder and stay there, perhaps with a daily swig in the pub and mixing among fellow working-class mates, yet remaining in lifelong ignorance and never to be taken seriously by the middle classes.

It was once a temptation to add Dr in front of my name on this page, but then I decided against the idea. Not only would I be deceitful, but chances that even among readers whom I have never met, they would see that my writing is considerably amateurish for a doctor. But working on what God has already given me is still the right thing to do.

And trusting in God, I think, is the real foundation for success. I could take Frank Sinatra's song My Way and look back at my life before retirement and say that I did it my way. But I much prefer to say that I did it God's way. Sure enough, I have never seen the inside of a university, the only time I saw the inside of an office was as a client, I worked manually with my hands, much of that in the realm of cleaning, for nearly half a century. Yet I have travelled the world, I have partaken in long-distance cycling and triathlons, I was even a pool lifeguard for several months when I was twenty, perhaps perceived by some as a "glamorous" job and maybe being as close to a paramedic as the job allowed.

I want to be seen at the Judgement Seat of Christ as one who did it God's way. And one of the greatest tools for going God's way is a thorough knowledge of the Bible, laced with the filling of the Holy Spirit. That is why I have always insisted that Bible reading increases intelligence. I can testify that this has happened to me, and I can assure anyone who wishes to read the Bible with faith in his heart that this will happen to him also.

And a heart-belief in the Gospel. The Good News. That is, God had created our first parents in God's own image. Unfortunately, their mistake brought sin into their lives, and we have lived with sin in our lives ever since, which means eternal separation from God. God gave the Law to Israel, showing all of us exactly what a pure holy life is all about. The trouble is, nobody was ever able to keep the Law perfectly. Even if someone did keep the Law perfectly until he stumbled at just one minor point - that was it. He had broken the Law, and must now face Judgement.

But God, in both his love for us and for his glory, sent his Son Jesus Christ, a man entirely without sin, to atone for us by dying on a cross, he was buried, and three days later he was resurrected from the dead. It was this third issue - his Resurrection - which makes Christianity stand out from all other religions. No other religious founder or leader was ever resurrected. Instead, their bones are with us to this day. The Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth was proof that he is the Christ, the Jewish Messiah. Because of his Resurrection, he can give eternal life with God to all who believe, having atoned for sin on the cross.

Christ's own righteousness, his perfect life, is imputed to everyone who believes. That is, God sees each believer as he sees his only Son. That is why the concept of Eternal Security, or Once Saved Always Saved, is Biblical. No other religion teaches this. Only Biblical Christianity. 

Eternal Security of the Believer is a life-changing doctrine. While at Sainsbury's superstore, I was met by one female who attends our church at Ascot. When I related to her about my wife's breast cancer and the course of chemotherapy she is at present going through, she was rather surprised about our lion's share of bad things happening to us. I could have said something like, "yes I know, life is always bad, unfair. Woe is me, in my sorrow, I go to the grave."

But I didn't say that. Instead, I expressed my determination to keep going, to keep on looking after my beloved wife, and thanking God for the NHS. And I know as I take Alex into my arms and look lovingly into her eyes, everything will be okay, even in her illness, for God is with us and he will never leave or forsake us. Once saved Always Saved. This truth is a foundation stone for us to keep going, no matter how bad circumstances can get.

That poor, poor Cambridge student. She had an enviable life, with the ability to travel halfway around the world to Madagascar, she was studying in one of the world's top universities, in preparation to work in a laboratory or as a field scientist. It was a pair of shoes I would have jumped into with enthusiastic glee. Yet she is no longer with us. What a crying shame! Because she had never known the TRUE meaning of life, and a university degree gotten at Cambridge wasn't it.

I Stand Alone at Easter

Easter weekend has arrived at last, supposedly bringing a temporary end to the chilly Winter days until they return once again on the approach to Christmas. Unfortunately, as it's always the case here in England, the weekend of warm sunshine was during the previous week, when at last everyone ventured out into the streets, shopping malls, parks, and other attractions free from the heavy overcoats, jackets, scarves, and carrying an umbrella on the ready, all which epitomise public life in general here in the UK. But as I ventured out earlier this morning for my weekly dose of Starbucks cappuccino and a copy of the Daily Mail newspaper, once again the sight of overcoats, jackets, scarves, and the potential of catching sight of an umbrella were back on the agenda. For according to the Met Office, the Easter weekend will actually be chillier than Christmas Day 2016 by about a couple of degrees. Thanks to a persistent polar wind blowing in from Iceland.

But that did not stop the lengthy traffic congestions building up on our motorways and major trunk roads, as British families with characteristic stiff upper lips head for the coast for the long weekend, with full knowledge of the dreary holiday weather. Within many family cars, fathers silently curse the driver of the car in front under his breath whilst mothers attempt to calm their boisterous children with a promise of more Easter egg treats after arrival at their sea-side Bed & Breakfast hotel. Other vehicles stuck in prolonged stationary traffic hide their bored kids at the back seat from the outside world, whilst both parents try to engage them into a game of I Spy, using the first word beginning with "C" - with the five-year-old immediately guessing correctly by submitting his word, Car.

Well-to-do Dads who were not so slavishly addicted to the steering wheel were taking their families to the coast by express train, where without doubt the family would be more relaxed. Promises of more chocolate treats or the need to play I Spy may not have been such a necessity, as the kids, sitting by the window, were enthralled at the scenery as it whizzed past at a speed no car could ever attain, not even illegally. Then there were those who cannot hack the British holiday climate, making their way to the airport. But even here the traffic on the roads leading to the terminals were so congested with like-minded sun-seekers, that some frustrated drivers had literally abandoned their cars for a quicker way to the check-in desk. If there was one crisis that would melt the stiff upper lip to butter and cause the lower lip to tremble in rage and frustration - it's the risk of missing the flight.

And so Easter comes and Easter goes, and the pulse of life beats on. After three months of driving to work and ferrying the kids to school in the cold, wind and rain, Easter is perceived as the gateway for the coming Summer months. Perhaps the egg is the perfect symbol of this. It stands for the beginning of new life when the weather at last warms up, the chick hatch, the trees bud, the daffodils blossom, the sheep in their lambing season - and at last, heavy Winter clothing are once again stored away in the wardrobe and chest of drawers. A time for optimism. But did I leave something out?

According to a You-Gov poll, nearly half of the UK population do not prioritise the Death, Burial, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ as the real reason for the long weekend. Rather, it lies in fourth place after the confection, the long weekend being a statutory holiday and therefore the need to get away. Yet, Easter is meant to be the most important festival in the Christian calender, even more so than Christmas, even if the former lacks the commercial glitter and party joviality which goes with the latter. And for many years I accepted without question that our Lord was crucified, died and was sealed in a rock tomb on a Friday, remained dead all day Saturday, and came back to life before dawn on the Sunday, even though I had found it hard that the total of 38-39 hours of non-life can equal three days - if 3 x 24 hour days adds up to 72 hours. Somehow, even from childhood, the figures did not seem to add up, which caused serious consequences in my perception of God and of the Christian faith. 

This was important to me, even back then. Because even after conversion near to Christmas 1972, I perceived God as loving his Son so much more than he loves me, that he wasn't patient enough to keep his body lying lifeless in the tomb for the full duration of 72 hours, so he cut the time short, so to speak, leaving me with a subconscious conclusion of my unworthiness, and that I had to "complete" the atonement by means of personal merit - something which is actually endorsed by the Catholic Church in which I grew up. To conclude that God loves Jesus much more than he loves me has left me in the state to question whether He loves me at all. Was God's character really like my father's and of the school teachers, who only perceived any act of kindness from me as a means of wanting something? In short, the Friday Crucifixion has made me doubt God's love. 

Then when I began to read the Bible after conversion, sooner or later I came across that one verse in the Gospels, and it was Matthew 12:40, which reads:

For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

This verse stands alone in the entire New Testament, there is no repeated statement found in the other three Gospels, nor in any of the letters. Therefore this left me to check out the prophet Jonah and see for myself exactly what actually took place when he fled on board a ship from God's presence. In Jonah 1:17, the narrator states that the prophet was in the belly of a large marine creature "for three days and three nights" - apparently with no qualification for a shorter or longer duration. That is a bare minimum of sixty hours if only a few minutes of either a third day or night is considered. The maximum duration would be 72 hours - if nothing of a fourth day or night is included. And that is why I have considered the late Dave Hunt and the Berean Society he founded, a group committed to "Searching the Scriptures daily to see whether it was so" - as stated in Acts 17:11. In his book, How Close Are We? he advocates a Thursday crucifixion. This means that if Jesus died around 3.00 pm on a Thursday afternoon, was buried, and by dawn on the Sunday he was already risen, then the duration of his death would have been in the region of 63 hours, which is within the acceptable time frame of 60-72 hours, when considering that he was dead during the last three hours of the first day, by the normal reckoning of Hebrew numeracy.*

What does this all mean to me? By accepting a Thursday crucifixion rather than the traditional Friday execution changes everything, especially my perception of God's character and his steadfast love. And that despite that I stand alone in my church and in the wider Christian community. Although I am familiar with three other churches in my own town, plus up to ten other churches within a radius of thirty miles from home, I have not heard a single preach advocating a Thursday crucifixion. However, I did have two Christians at different times and at different places having spoken to me in likely agreement.

All the Elders at my regular church in Ascot believe in a Friday crucifixion. I was there with them yesterday, a Good Friday, worshipping God among a people I love dearly. I don't dispute this matter with the Elders. Instead I submit to them, as the Bible itself recommend. If at the Judgement Seat of Christ, I am asked by God himself why I dared to simplify what he had set up to be a very complex issue, then I will answer this to God alone, and I will not deny my responsibility.

A Thursday Crucifixion changes everything. With this I can be assured that God does what he says he will do. There are no short cuts with him, no renegade on his word. Instead, God's love for the likes of one as myself can be reassured by the keeping of his promises. The beautiful offshoot of such divine character is my assurance of salvation, Eternal Security, Once Saved Always Saved. If the concept of the Friday crucifixion causes me to question the love of God and his assurance of fulfilled promises, then how can I possibly believe in Once Saved Always Saved? Really, I'm beginning to wonder whether there is a connection between the Arminian idea that salvation can be lost with the lack of assurance of God's promises properly fulfilled. But on this issue of a Thursday Crucifixion, I will stand firm, even if all alone.

Just as I will stand alone, if necessary, in believing that both our planet and the entire Universe are no more than six thousand years old, and which came into existence by God's spoken word. Yes, I'm willing to stand alone in this, as I am ready to stand alone with Holy Scripture endorsing the historicity of Adam and Eve, and the Scriptural fact that the Atonement made by Jesus Christ on the Cross was because of the Fall in the Garden of Eden, endorsed as historic by both Jesus himself (Matthew 19:1-12) and by Paul the Apostle (Romans 5:12-21). In short, if Adam and Eve had never existed, then the whole of the Christian faith is fit only for the trash-bin. All the words in the Bible will not be worth the paper they are printed on.

And the same applies to Biblical semantics. I'm willing to stand alone in my conviction that the English word Repent means A change of mind, so verbally demonstrated in Peter's sermon narrated throughout the whole second chapter of Acts. I am ready to stand alone with the historical fact that in the Fourth Century AD, St Jerome mistranslated the Greek word for Repent to a Latin word for Penitence, thus changing God's plan of salvation from simply changing your mind about Jesus being the risen Christ, to the need to forsake sin, which involves works performed to exonerate the believer from his sins, and then to remain faithful afterwards in order to be saved. I will stand with this opinion that the Roman Catholic Church, along with quite a number of Protestant and Reformed churches, were never freed from St. Jerome's mistranslation, even if this great scholar did not make such a error with malicious intent.

And with these things I stand, even if no one takes any notice. And yes, I'm very much used to all that. Thanks to that great psychologist Cyril Burt who, in the early 1940's, composed a theory that innate intelligence could be measured at eleven years of age. This led to the 1944 Education Act, bringing in the eleven-plus exam for all primary school children, thus pigeon-holing every pupil according to how he performed in the test. Bright kids who passed were selected for Grammar School education, followed by University graduation. Those who failed ended up at the Secondary Modern school, back then known as the academic trash-bin, and geared for vocational and manual labour occupations. Ironic, coming to think of it. What I have found to be rather surprising was whilst the Alliance, including the British forces, were up against Hitler's Nazi powers, much time and attention were given over to such matters such as child intelligence and schooling. Of course, not only did I fail the eleven-plus, but came rock bottom, and condemned to sit at the slowest learning class in the whole school between the years 1964 to 1968. This resulted in four years of my life wasted. How come? Because all I received in secondary education was a re-hash of everything I had learnt at primary.

The snag was that if a student fails the exam by just one mark, he would be classed as a failure. Meanwhile, another student just scrapes through, and he would be categorised as a genius, and both go on to their respective schools.  Unless out of a stroke of good fortune, it does not allow for the chance of later mental development. However, I'm very happy to say that conversion to Jesus Christ as Saviour and exploring the Bible and reading it freely has vastly improved my intelligence and academic quality! And I'm not exaggerating. The Christian faith has done more than merely save my soul from eternal loss. It has made me a new man, a better person, here and now.

But this is England, blessed England. A land with its culture where the fate of an individual is determined before his twelfth birthday. Failed the exam? Then I must know my place. And sad to say, most, if not all, of our churches go along with this British culture. For example, fresh young leaders and preachers will always hold a degree. In the whole of the 45 years as a Christian believer, I hardly recall any exceptions. Rather, I do recall the Junior Church department at my home town fellowship, which was staffed by graduates, all of them believing in Evolution. They were most prominent throughout the late 1970's and well into the Eighties. In addition, the Church of England has always relied on the gene pool at Oxford and Cambridge for future leadership. As for Cyril Burt, it takes the opinion of just one doctor to decide the fate of countless numbers of students over the decades, without leaving room for later development of academic ability and intelligence. 

Canterbury Cathedral - Head of the Church of England.

This means that although I'm accepted and loved by my regular church, and even held at a high esteem by at least two of the Elders as well as by some of the students who attend, I doubt that I would ever be given a chance to teach, even though I might have a gifting for it. Some years ago, back in the early/mid nineties, a family suggested that, with my then knowledge of the Bible, I should teach a class, with themselves being willing students. But when I presented the idea to one of the Elders (no longer with us) - he said that this responsibility belongs to someone out of university and therefore better trained. Little wonder that, for a very different reason, he was defrocked by the congregation, and soon afterwards moved across the Atlantic to Florida.

It was to the likes of Cyril Burt that our schooling culture is at it is to this day, with the likes of me remaining unqualified for such responsibilities within the local church, whilst forever watching young graduates take their place at the pulpit or teaching a group. But nevertheless, I make my stand, even if it means standing alone.

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*You can read more on why I believe in a Thursday Crucifixion by clicking here

"How" - Yes; But No "Why".

One of our church Elders sat across the table at a Starbucks coffee bar adjoining our nearest superstore to my home. As I sipped through a Cappuccino Grande, we enjoyed a hearty conversation over various church issues, perhaps also wondering whether to thank the Americans for allowing us to sample their culture here in the UK, or to rebuke our cousins across the Atlantic for stealing an Italian recipe and making it their own. It was probably midway through the conversation when he came up with a statement which made me consider whether on this blog page I demonstrate a dislike for educated men, or of education itself. On the contrary I have a strong respect for educated people, or else I would never visit my GP, or that matter, submit myself to the knowledge and experience of the cardiac surgeon and his team that morning last year I had open heart surgery.

But much has to do with the the academic's attitude, especially towards us "commoners" or "plebs" which makes up a large percentage of the population. Here, in this part of the world, traditional manufacturing industry has been replaced over the years by high-tech offices, where production is centred around computer programming, various services, and administration. The grease stained boiler suit has become as rare as an oasis in the desert, replaced by the business suit - although ironical, the tie looks to be heading the same way as the boiler suit. Living within a geographical strip roughly located between the A3 and the A4 motorways, the British equivalent of the Silicon Valley, I can't help noticing a high proportion of well educated people, particularly in the churches. For someone who has struggled at school back in the sixties, living in such a modern environment can test one's self-esteem. One of the benefits of being in a local church is to experience a society free from any social, academic, and ethnic barriers, and for everyone to be seen as equals in God's eyes and the eyes of the fellowship.

One of the men I have come to admire is Professor Brian Cox, at present on a series of weekly BBC programmes Forces of Nature. I think it's the way he presents himself that has drawn out my attraction towards him. Always appearing casually dressed in front of the camera. So far I have not seen him wearing a shirt-and-tie throughout any of his scientific presentations. Rather he tends to be drawn towards wearing a crew-neck tee shirt. To me that says something. In fact, I believe it says a lot. That is, he prefers to identify himself as one of us rather than way up there in a cliquey "them-and-us" sphere of attitude. This along with how he explains his theories. Easy to understand without any patronising.

Brian Cox at the Grand Canyon.

On one of his previous presentations, he explained the meaning of entropy. In one visual demonstration, he was at a semi-desert environment near an abandoned mining town, with derelict buildings slowly filling with sand blown in through shattered windows. He crouched down and started to sift the dry sand making up a sand mound. He explained that the natural mound was high in entropy, since despite his rough handling, it retains its natural shape. Then he picked up a sandcastle mould and slapped it on the ground. When lifted, a castle consisting of damp sand remains standing, like on any sandy beach. This has low entropy, because, as he explains, this ordered structure can only become disordered through time. Even if he does not touch the castle and spoil it, the wind will blow away the sand grains until the castle disappears altogether. 

This is school-level education which unfortunately, the staff at my school considered the whole class too slow-learning to understand. Or to put it bluntly, too stupid. So it was never taught. Only the brightest students had the privilege to learn the meaning of entropy and its mathematical relation with the second law of thermodynamics. An easy explanation delivered without the need to wear uniform - no school jacket, no school badge, and no school tie. Just good knowledge delivered over the airwaves in a way the uninitiated would understand.

Like the explanation of why a snowflake always have six sides yet each looks different from each other, and why a larger heavenly body is always spherical. The first is to do with the structure of the water molecule, and the flake's unique journey to the ground from the clouds, and the second from the forces of gravitation at work within the formation of the star, planet or moon respectively. Thanks, Brian.

The scientist is intrigued with the vast complexity of the Universe as well as with natural wonders here on Earth. But with an apparent obsession with entropy, he gives a large segment of his presentation to the end of the world, the end of the Solar System, and the end of the Universe as a whole. Since everything starts off in an orderly state, then gradually decline toward disorder, he was apologetic for delivering a dire prophecy that trillions upon trillions of years into the future, not only our own Sun will be long gone, having burned all its hydrogen fuel into helium and then exploding into space as a Nebula, but the time will come when every single star will cease to exist, leaving the entire Universe as a dark, cold empty void, with all atoms gone forever. A very dire prophecy indeed, which he delivers with absolute certainty.

Which to me, leaves me to ask: If everything in the Universe was orderly, then how did it all begin? Cox advocates the Big Bang theory. But the energy needed to start off the explosion, along with all the gases, clouds, and other substances that will eventually form stars, planets, and smaller pieces of rock - how was this energy activated in the first place? I don't think the physicist has an answer, for practically nothing was said about what was already in place prior to the explosion. But to give him credit, he along with other scientists when confronted with a problem of such nature, he will admit that Science cannot explain everything without further research, and they are happy to wait until such appropriate evidence emerges. As an atheist's point of view, Science remains open to research and debate, while they see the theist having everything explained cut-and-dried, and therefore evidence supporting their theories must, sooner or later, emerge.

Then on September 28th 1969, a meteorite fell to Earth near the Australian town of Murchison, Victoria. Examination of the surviving fragment has revealed the presence of amino acid within the rock structure. This came at a time when the theory of evolution was under scrutiny by various academics, including geneticists, along with individuals such as Michael Behe and Fred Hoyle. It was Hoyle, atheist, astronomer and mathematician, who calculated the mathematical impossibility of just the enzymes to have evolved by chance. The enzymes is just part of the protein chain found in the nucleus of every cell in the body. Yet the probability of just the enzymes evolving naturally stands at one chance out of a number consisting of one, followed by forty thousand zeroes, which is considerably more than all the electrons existing in the entire Universe!

Fragment of Murchison Meteorite.

The Murchison Meteorite must have been a vital lifeline thrown to Darwin's theory of evolution just in time, otherwise before suffering its final throes which would have led to it's impending death. At present, the idea of some form of basis of life embedded in a meteorite as it fell into the primeval ocean is now the accepted possibility. I have seen a bizarre cartoon appearing in a national newspaper promoting the idea that we are originally from outer space, a theory I understand to be embraced by Brian Cox.

I enjoy watching Brian Cox and his scientific presentations. I love his informal casual dress and appearance. I love the way he identifies with one of us rather than one of the aloof elite. There are lots of things I could learn and understand without struggling to comprehend. Entropy is one of them. So is the unique structure of the snowflake. And gravity, with its effects on why our planet is spherical. But he always remains within the sphere on how all these things come about. He stays clear of the inter-relating sphere on why. This, I think, is because why will involve religion. And Cox, along with Hoyle, is an atheist. They both reject the Scriptural record of Divine Creation by an intelligence greater than themselves.

Cox's delusion with religion most likely originated in his teenage years as he attended Hulme Grammar School in Oldham, Greater Manchester. Most likely at morning assembly, where worship was conducted under Church of England liturgy. This was something I remember quite clearly at my own school back in the sixties. Church of England liturgy. And on the staff platform stood the deputy head. He did not lead the assembly himself, but this man was the most feared by all the pupils. Nearly every day he dispatched a hapless boy to wait for him at his office. When he arrived, the student received a caning. Just for talking briefly when he should have been listening. This caused my own perception of God to be very bad, and I ended up hating him, and my only source of consolation was to deny his existence, and stay well away from any church building. I even recall my first day at college. At the front of the main hall stood what looked like a pulpit. I felt my spine shiver at the thought of the possibility of another morning assembly. Furthermore, I wasn't alone at school. I recall a number of boys who went down the same road towards atheism as well.

I can't say whether Brian Cox had a similar experience at school or not. But I wouldn't rule it out.

A popular Atheist's Poster

At present, how I would love to sit at table with Brian Cox. But not to discuss the origins of the Universe or the origins of life. Brian would run rings around me in an instant! But instead to ask him:
What is your thoughts on the Death, Burial and Resurrection of Jesus Christ?

I would keep the conversation solely on Jesus Christ. His death by crucifixion, his burial, and on his resurrection. His Resurrection. That one event in the whole of cosmic and human history which is defiant of all scientific reasoning (together with his miraculous conception, that is, to have conceived without fertilization from a male sperm.) The Resurrection of Jesus Christ sets this faith apart from all other religions. If Cox were to ask me to prove his existence and his resurrection as factual, which would be the likeliest direction he would take, then I would ask him to check and verify his knowledge of human history. For example, in 1555 Bishops Nicholas Ridley and Hugh Latimer were burnt alive at the stake outside Balliol College in Oxford, with their strong conviction that Jesus Christ was crucified, buried, and rose again physically from the dead. These two preferred to give their lives than deny the truth.

But if Cox was to push the idea that the disciples, or even the Pharisees, had stolen the body of Jesus from the tomb, such reasoning would not stand the light of day. The Pharisees would have quenched the growing movement instantly by producing the body for all to see. But as with the disciples, of the twelve, eleven had willingly given themselves to martyrdom, along with the apostle Paul, and many others, including Stephen, who allowed himself to be stoned to death by the Sanhedrin, for testifying that this Jesus of Nazareth had indeed risen from the dead. If, on the other hand, Jesus did not die at all whilst on the cross, but merely passed out, then assuming he recovered on the third day and disappeared to some unknown location - a theory once advocated by The Sun newspaper around 1980 - then the martyrdom of so many would be based on a lie, as with the other two theories. Surely nobody would ever give his life to something he knew to be untrue.

Multiple thousands have given their lives to the truth of Christ's Resurrection throughout history. Churches grew, even divisions occurred, and the Reformation happened. Churches exist to this day - all advocating the truth of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ of Nazareth as a historical fact.

This is very important to someone such as Brian Cox. He needs to believe in the truthfulness of Jesus Christ - his supernatural birth, his existence, his death, burial and resurrection, and to trust him for his wonderful gift of eternal life. Only then will his brilliant knowledge of scientific origins of the Universe will fall into its proper place.

Living on the Edge.

A wonderful testimony appeared in an article published in the Daily Mail newspaper today (Saturday). It featured this prisoner at a Soviet Union labour camp. Absolutely exhausted, he was driven to the end of his endurance. He threw his shovel down to lay for a rest on a nearby bench, expecting the guards to arrive to give him a severe beating, as he had seen done to others who took a rest without permission. Instead, an emaciated prisoner arrived to where he was lying down, and with a stick, drew a cross in the mud beside him. He looked at the cross, believed, and found the energy to resume work before the guards arrived.

Born again right there and then. No Bible readings (this was banned in the Soviet Union), no church attendance, no altar call, no confessing to a priest, no man in a suit booming out a sermon on repentance, not even a "sinner's prayer" uttered from his lips. Just a crude representation of a cross drawn with a stick in the mud. And his eternal destiny changed forever, never to revert to his former spiritual state. Such as the wonder and the simplicity of God's grace!

And how I wish this simple faith can be seen a lot more, not only in this country, but on a global scale, and particularly in the Middle East. If all the Muslims saw the Cross and believed, surely this would be a far, far better world to live in, would it not? At least mainstream terrorism would have been dealt a fatal blow. And that's where the present unrest in the Western World had originated, not just from the Middle East where different sects of Islam fight each other (Sunni against Shia, for example), but their belief in Jihad, compelling them to fight non-Muslims altogether. Then the awkward little fact that the prisoner in the labour camp had no need to investigate different sects and beliefs within the Christian faith - whether the Catholics were truer to the Bible or if Protestants were. Then this niggling but rather huge debate whether a saved person is eternally secure in his salvation, or not. None of these things either stirred his faith nor muffled it. Instead his faith came by a crude cross etched in the mud. That was all.

This testimony was found in a much large article on why our nation has become so secular, which was about embracing materialistic comforts rather than meditating on our sinful condition and realising our need for Jesus Christ crucified, buried, and resurrected. One prime example is seeing Easter as a time for ceasing work, enjoying a holiday, shopping, and the emphasis on chocolate eggs as well as bunnies for the kids, rather than a reflection on the Resurrection of Christ. And this came on a day later, after an online article was posted at the same newspaper, by atheist David Fitzgerald of San Francisco, who wrote that Jesus Christ as a person had never existed. Part of the basis of his assumption was the idea that the Bible, particular in the four Gospels, was inconsistent with how this man was presented, contradictions on one thing upon another. 

What we have been through in the last few years, knowing that Jesus Christ was Crucified, buried and Resurrected is absolutely vital for our faith and well being. As one popular chorus (one of our wedding songs) goes:- Father God, I wonder how I managed to exist without the knowledge of your parenthood and your loving care...the record of Jesus Christ as the Son of God must be as solid rock upon which our faith rests. As for the case of David Fitzgerald, as with Richard Dawkins, and Sam Harris, no matter how much I know the Bible, I would not be able to stand up face to face to them unless some miracle, whether in speech or action, takes place - but even then, like the Pharisees of old, once their minds are set, nothing can change them. And unfortunately, they seem to draw the masses along with them into eternal darkness. Again as I said before, this happens out of celebrity, academic, or social class worship. Therefore I too have felt earthquakes in my own faith over many years, with both my knowledge of Scripture challenged along with adverse circumstances.

Since my conversion towards the end of 1972, I remained settled with the idea that Good Friday come round every year simply because Jesus was crucified on a Friday. It made sense: Three days in the tomb - Friday evening, all day Saturday, and a tiny bit into Sunday. Even if I knew about the Hebrew marking of time, their new day starting at sundown, my opinion of a Friday crucifixion would have remained unchanged, as the last few hours of Friday would have been counted as the first day, as would have been all the small hours of Sunday morning. This originated from the Catholic church, and had been ongoing throughout the centuries, and it was what I grew up with. Like the vast majority of the Christian public, I never questioned the essence of Jesus crucified on a Friday.

That is, until I came across Matthew 12:40 which reads:-

For as Jonah was for three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be for three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

If ever there was a verse, and the only one in the whole of the New Testament at that, which throws a spanner into the works of a long-standing creed, surely this must be it. In my younger days as a believer, it was just one of these things I had to swallow, hoping I wouldn't get bellyache afterwards. That was until I was walking through a street at a South London borough of Brixton in 1974 with a good friend of mine, that he mentioned the idea and his support for a Thursday crucifixion. Ouch! But even then I wanted to believe, since this made far better sense. Jesus Christ crucified a day earlier. It would be goodbye to Maundy Thursday. And opposed to centuries of Church tradition, as well as going against a statutory national holiday. But this is why I don't mind believing a fringe theory, or living on the edge. If Jesus was crucified on a Thursday, he then would be dead for three actual days: Thursday evening, and all day Friday and Saturday. And as the three nights would have fitted in, these would have been Thursday night, Friday night and Saturday night, as Jesus had already risen before daybreak of Sunday. But even considering the Jewish reckoning, he would have been dead for the small hours of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday mornings.

But what seems to be more vexing is the apparent contradiction between Matthew and John concerning the Passover. In Matthew's account, Jesus sends his disciples to prepare a room where they can eat the Passover (26:17-19, along with Mark 14:12-16, and Luke 22:7-13). All three of the four Gospels record that it was already the first day of unleavened bread, and Jesus sends his followers out to prepare for the Passover. But it was John who recorded that when the Jews brought Jesus to Pilate, that the Roman governor had to come out to them, for their refusal to enter his palace was because they did not want to defile themselves, for they have yet to eat the Passover. So according to John, the Passover wasn't eaten yet (John 18:28.) And this was the morning after the Last Supper was eaten.

No wonder the Bible must be a treasure trove for the leering scoffers! And yet, as I see it, John must be right on this account. The morning of the day, according to John's account, Jesus was brought to Pilate, the Passover lambs across Israel had not yet been slain. This would explain why Paul referred Jesus as the Passover Lamb in his first letter to the Corinthian church (5:7.) If this is true, then Jesus must have died at the same time as the Passover lambs were slain among all the Jewish families across the Middle East. It was John too, who made a quick statement, as in parenthesis, that the day following the crucifixion, was "a high day" (19:31) - his equivalent of a bank holiday. It was a special Sabbath, not the normal Sabbath, but rather the first day of unleavened bread, which fell on a Friday. So if this is true, the crucifixion took place on the Thursday, Jesus died three hours later, at the same time all the Passover lambs were slain and roasted, and by nightfall, the Passover festival began, which by then it was already Friday. 

The only way, as far as I can see, is that according to the first three accounts, the Last Supper took place after sundown, which was already the same Thursday as the Crucifixion, his death, and the slaughtering of the Passover Lambs. But the meal they had that night was the Last Supper, in which the New Covenant was initiated by the Lord himself. If John's account is to be believed, when the Last Supper was feasted on, all the Passover lambs were still alive, waiting to be killed.

Then another issue where sneering atheists would love to throw the book at, is the apparent disagreement between Mark and John over the time of day Jesus was crucified. In Marks's account (15:25), it was "the third hour" that Jesus was crucified. But in John's account, by the sixth hour, Jesus was still before Pilate (19:13-15), pleading to the baying crowd to change their minds, but to no avail. If we understand the third hour being nine in the morning, and the sixth our being midday, then clearly a discrepancy exist between the two writers. However, Luke's recording of Pilate sending Jesus and his accusers to Herod seems to back John's record, rather than Mark's. Even if Herod was in Jerusalem on that day, allowing up to thirty minutes to cross the city, then another thirty minutes to return to Pilate, this would have given Herod at least a full hour to interrogate Jesus, still leaving ample time for the Roman governor to plead to the crowd on Jesus' behalf.

Does that leave the possibility that an error has crept in with a later copying of Mark's Gospel? Personally, that's how I see it, unless a justifiable explanation can be offered. This seems at first at least, to give victory to the atheists and the academics, who point their finger at us for insisting that the Bible is the infallible Word of God, entirely without error. And according to some, particularly with a Church of Christ member on this website, God is seen as fully able to protect his Word over the millennia, especially with modern translations. If that tiny discrepancy in Mark's Gospel proves to be an error in ancient copying, then this will open the floodgates for the academic scoffers to destroy its credibility.

But the main thing is that all four accounts record the death of Jesus by crucifixion, his burial, and then his resurrection early that Sunday morning, before daybreak. And upon this record my faith rests. The death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, proving once and for all that he is the Jewish Messiah who came to reconcile the world to himself, not counting our transgressions against us. And no other man who ever lived and died had enjoyed the privilege of a physical resurrection, defeating death forever. And furthermore, no other man fulfilled Old Testament prophecy with such startling accuracy than Jesus of Nazareth. One only need to read Isaiah 53, Psalm 22, and Zechariah 9:9, 11:12-13 as examples to see how Jesus was the fulfillment of prophecy written hundreds of years before he came.

Old Testament prophecy fulfilled is the greatest testimony of Jesus being the Christ, of God himself we call the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. God became man to atone for our sins, bringing us to the Father and making us citizens of his Kingdom in Heaven. This is the greatest news no other religion can offer, totally by grace, and free of any works.

Happy Easter to you all. Enjoy your chocolate eggs, for its sweetness is a good symbol of the Gospel, and the start of a new life, in which the confection represents.