FACT OF RESURRECTION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21764, 2 April 1934, Page 10

FACT OF RESURRECTION

SERMON BY ARCHBISHOP HOPE OF IMMORTALITY "I submit that there is a greater variety of evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus than for any other fact m the world," said Archbishop Averill, preaching an Easter sermon to a large congregation in St. Mary's Cathedral last evening. He drew attention to the solid body of facts on which the testimony of the apostles was based. Peter, he said, did not attempt to defend the great truths which he related, because they were so perfectly obvious and well known and because they could not be gainsaid. There was just sufficient variety in the witness of the various apostles to convince anyone capable of sifting and interpreting evidence that .the evidence was overwhelming for the establishment of the main fact of the Resurrection on which they were all agreed.

"Don't you think that it is about time that we Christians ceased apologising for our faith?" asked the archbishop. Those who were most competent to judge, those who received the Holy Spirit to guide them into all truth did not waste time in apologising. They just witnessed to what they" knew to be true.

It would be easy to add to the direct evidence of tlie apostles, the preacher continued, the circumstantial evidence for the Resurrection—the empty tomb, the undisturbed grave-clothes and bandages lying as they had enfolded the body. What else but the Resurrection could account for the institution of the Lord's Day on the first day of the \veek! J Neither could there have been the great sacraments if Christ had not risen. "What is our hope of immortality?" he asked. "Is it, think you, what Auckland has been told last week, that it is the development of the supreme intelligence, the highest culture, which leads to everlasting happiness, or is it the union with the living Christ? Again, we have been told that we cannot solve the religious, social and economic problems bv themselves, but if the religious problem is solved, if the risen Christ is the Lord of all good life, He is the solution of all social and economic problems. "What is the solution of the great problem of the outcasts of India? Will they by supremo intelligence come to the perfect happiness? If supreme intelligence is the road to the eternal happiness, there is little hope for them, but they are finding the real road to happiness in Christ Jesus. Jesus is not the great problem. Jesus is the great solution of all the world's problems, if tho world would follow Him."