FESTIVAL OF HOPE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21467, 15 April 1933, Page 1 (Supplement)

FESTIVAL OF HOPE

BY H.H.D.

EASTERTIDE

It is a commonplace statement that the vast and imposing fabric of Christianity is built on an empty tomb. It is not alone or chiefly the lofty morality of the New Testament that accounts for the marvellous influence it has exerted in human history. Other religious systems have contained excellent ethical precepts and have acquired widespread acceptance among the nations of the earth. But alone among the great religions which have swayed the minds of men, Christianity has from the earliest days been based upon the belief that its Founder, who died an ignominious death after a life of unparalleled purity and beneficence, rose again from the dead. His loyal followers claimed that the grave in which the.y had lovingly laid Him after they had taken Him down from the cross was untenanted when they visited it early on the first day of the week. They asserted He had appeared personally 'to many of them. They affirmed this belief on the very spot where it could most easily have been refuted if it had been untrue. They were not predisposed to accept this most momentous fact, but when the evidence had fully convinced them that their crucified Master had actually risen they proclaimed their belief fearlessly and triumphantly The Insurrection of Jesus Christ became the central item in the faith of the nascent Church. It came to be embodied in the creeds of all sections of the Church — the Roman Catholic, the Greek Orthodox and all brandies of the Reformed Protestant faith. To deny it is to repudiate Christianity. Everywhere throughout Christendom leister recalls and celebrates the fact that Joseph's new tomb, in which reverent disciples placed the body of their Lord, was empty on Easter Sunday morning. The evidence for this superlatively important event has been scrutinised and criticised all through the ages, but it has survived every hostile attack and remains an essential element of the Christian faith. The very persistency of the belief in the teeth of all hostile criticism may fairly be regarded as a proof of its verity and value. Accredited Facts For the Christianity which the great mass of the people still profess to believe is based on historic facts, not on dreamy fancies and idle speculations. Rationalists, like Mrs. Humphrv Ward, may declare that it was only the passionate fancy of a few mourning Galilean women that begot the exquisite fable of the Resurrection. But scholarly thinkers who have scrutinised with most meticulous care the evidence for this cardinal item of the Christian creed hold firmly to its historicity. Dr. Thomas Arnold, the famous master of Rugby School, said he knew of no one fact in the history of mankind which was proved by better and fuller evidence to the mind of a fair inquirer. Prebendary C. A. Row declared that no event in the history of the remote past possessed a historical attestation that was equally true. Bishop Westcott, of Durham, said that taking all the evidence together there was no historical incident better or more variously supported. Professor A. S. Peake said " After I have examined with care, and I trust with an open mind, the literature that has been accessible to me which has been written to disprove the fact of the Resurrection, my own faith in it remains sure.'' Many equally capable witnesses might easily be adduced. And lest the verdict of theologians should be regarded as biassed and prejudiced, there may be quoted an eminent layman and astute politician. Lord Salisbury wrote: "To me the central point is the Resurrection of Christ, which 1 believe, firstly, because it is attested by men who had every opportunity of seeing and knowing, and whose veracity was tested by the most tremendous trials. Secondly, because of the marvellous effect it had upon the world. As a moral phenomenon the mastery and spread of Christianity is without a parallel." This fundamental verity of the Christian faith, which has so profoundly influenced human history and on which the splendid structure of the Christian Church rests, cannot be discussed as a cunningly-devised fable or an idle dream. It has outlived the fiercest criticism. It has produced the most beatific results. It has commanded the assent of the acutest intellects. Every Eastertide has emphasised its supremo importance. And Christians of all creeds, all climes and all colours avow their faith in it in unequivocal terms. Important Implications The implications of Easter are of course unspeakably important. If tlio crucified Nazarene really arose after His brief sleep in the rock-hewn sepulchre in Jerusalem, the terror of death which torments all men is alleviated if not conquered. " The shadow feared of man " falls across the sunniest life. The human race, in one continuous and melancholy procession, moves on toward the grave. Horace long ago noted that "Pallid Death strikes with impartial foot the palaces of kings and the huts of the poor." None are exempt from the arrow that lays low all classes alike. And if our brief span of ■lifo end with death our existence would seem to bo pitifully futile. But if the noblest specimen of our race passed through the experience of suffering and death and emerged from the darkness of the grave with tho glow of immortality upon Him, we may indulge tho hope of continuous lifo beyond the grim and repellent experiences of death. Charles Darwin tells us that whenover he stood before the glass case which contained the cobra di capella he instinctively shrank back every time the reptile thrust out its venomous fangs, although he knew ho was protected by the thick glass between himself and the snake, and we can never overcome our aversion to death, tho King of Terrors. But Easter inspires the hope that death docs not end all, but that beyond it lies a lifo immortal. Deep Desire It may be said that tho hopo of immortality burns but dimly in this secular ago of ours. In Russia, where Easter greetings were for centuries joyfully interchanged, they are now strictly forbidden and ridiculed and caricatured. Yet deep in our human nature lies the desire for lifo beyond the fugitive present. It is an ineradicable instinct. All races, from the most primitive to the most cultured, have felt it. Materialism cannot suppress and banish it. It is too persistent to be ignored; and nothing serves more to foster and encourage it than the glad Easter message. Easter, therefore, invests our fleeting life with a dignity and a value it could not otherwise possess. It relieves our lot of triviality and meanness, and fills it with lofty purpose. It tells of a world unseen, which enspheres and overarches this world in which our transient life is spent. It assures us that goodness, wisdom and nobility of character acquired here by self-denial and sustained endeavour will not sink into everlasting oblivion, but pass through .the grim gates of death to a richer life beyond.