But you, most holy Lord, why do you ask her why she weeps? Surely you can see; her heart, the dear life of her soul, is cruelly slain. O love to be wondered at; O evil to be shuddered at; you hung on the wood, pierced by iron nails, stretched out like a thief for the mockery of wicked men; and yet, “Woman,” you say, “why are you weeping?” She had not been able to prevent them from killing you, but at least she longed to keep your body for a while with ointments lest it decay. No longer able to speak with you living, at least she could mourn for you dead. So, near to death and hating her own life, she repeats in broken tones the words of life which she had heard from the living. And now, besides all this, even the body which she was glad, in a way, to have kept, she believes to have gone. And can you ask her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” Had she not reason to weep? For she had seen with her own eyes — if she could bear to look — what cruel men cruelly did to you; and now all that was left of you from their hands she thinks she has lost. All hope of you has fled, for now she has not even your lifeless body to remind her of you. And someone asks, “Who are you looking for? Why are you weeping?” You, her sole joy, should be the last thus to increase her sorrow. But you know it all well, and thus you wish it to be, for only in such broken words and sighs can she convey a cause of grief as great as hers. The love you have inspired you do not ignore. And indeed you know her well, the gardener, who planted her soul in his garden. What you plant, I think you also water. Do you water, I wonder, or do you test her? In fact, you are both watering and putting to the test.

But now, good Lord, gentle Master, look upon your faithful servant and disciple, so lately redeemed by your blood, and see how she burns with anxiety, desiring you, searching all round, questioning, and what she longs for is nowhere found. Nothing she sees can satisfy her, since you whom alone she would behold, she sees not. What then? How long will my Lord leave his beloved to suffer thus? Have you put off compassion now you have put on incorruption? Did you let go of goodness when you laid hold of immortality? Let it not be so, Lord. You will not despise us mortals now you have made yourself immortal, for you made yourself a mortal in order to give us immortality.

And so it is; for love’s sake he cannot bear her grief for long or go on hiding himself. For the sweetness of love he shows himself who would not for the bitterness of tears. The Lord calls his servant by the name she has often heard and the servant knows the voice of her own Lord. I think, or rather I am sure, that she responded to the gentle tone with which he was accustomed to call, “Mary.”

Read it all.

Today's art: Noli me tangere – Hans Holbein the Younger https://t.co/NOg663cwx8 pic.twitter.com/aciL9Q79BI

— Art and the Bible (@artbible) April 18, 2022

Listen to the whole glorious thing.

Lyrics:

1.This joyful Eastertide
away with sin and sorrow!
My love, the Crucified,
has sprung to life this morrow.

Refrain:
Had Christ, who once was slain,
not burst his three-day prison,
our faith had been in vain:
but now hath Christ arisen,
arisen, arisen;
but now has Christ arisen!

2. My flesh in hope shall rest
and for a season slumber
till trump from east to west
shall wake the dead in number. [

3. Death’s flood has lost its chill
since Jesus crossed the river.
Lover of souls, from ill
my passing soul deliver.

From here:

Moist with one drop of thy blood, my dry soul
Shall (though she now be in extreme degree
Too stony hard, and yet too fleshly,) be
Freed by that drop, from being starved, hard, or foul,
And life, by this death abled, shall control
Death, whom thy death slew; nor shall to me
Fear of first or last death, bring misery,
If in thy little book my name thou enrol,
Flesh in that long sleep is not putrefied,
But made that there, of which, and for which ’twas;
Nor can by other means be glorified.
May then sin’s sleep, and death’s soon from me pass,
That waked from both, I again risen may
Salute the last, and everlasting day.

Resurrection of Christ by Bartolome Esteban Murillo. pic.twitter.com/88CyAPEScA

— Christian Culture (@Christian8Pics) October 14, 2016

Judge eternal, throned in splendor, who gavest Juan de la Cruz strength of purpose and mystical faith that sustained him even through the dark night of the soul: Shed thy light on all who love thee, in unity with Jesus Christ our Savior; who with thee and the Holy Spirit livest and reignest, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

St John of the Cross:
"Where there is no love, put love,
and you will draw out love"#MondayMotivation pic.twitter.com/aSnzTzJhF1

— Carmelite Nuns of Great Britain (@carmelnunsgb) January 16, 2023

O Lord God of our fathers, who didst of old deliver thy people from the prison-house of Egypt through the paschal sacrifice: Mercifully grant that we thy new Israel, redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, may be set free from the bondage of evil and serve thee henceforth in the joy and power of the resurrection; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ, who ever liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end.

Rêverie au bord de l’eau, Sierre 💙💖💙🇨🇭#valais #suisse #switzerland #schweiz #ineedswitzerland #landscapephotography #landscape #photooftheday #photography #paysage #mountains #naturebeauty #lake #reflections #quietplace @MySwitzerland_e @Veronique_Kanel @valaiswallis pic.twitter.com/B6oU0ft1L2

— Délèze Dominique (@DelezeD) April 18, 2023

You are encouraged to follow along.

Gafcon IV begins!

Please pray for Bishop Julian and Brenda, Bishop Bill and Karen, and the rest of our diocesan delegation as they gather in Kigali with faithful Anglicans from around the world. pic.twitter.com/kfDp2cdEnW

— The Anglican Diocese of the Living Word (@The_ADLW) April 17, 2023

While I was with them, I kept them in thy name, which thou hast given me; I have guarded them, and none of them is lost but the son of perdition, that the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them thy word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I do not pray that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; thy word is truth. As thou didst send me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be consecrated in truth.

–John 17:12-19

Good morning all
Buenas dias pic.twitter.com/GTBYA9apqw

— Mystic Mel (@Melshenny1) April 18, 2023

“We need to be clear about the nature of the relation between the death and resurrection of Jesus, and careful not to ascribe saving efficacy to both equally…It is by the blood of Jesus that God’s wrath against sin was propitiated, and by the same blood of Jesus that we have been redeemed, justified, and reconciled. For it was by his death, and not his resurrection that our sins were dealt with…Nowhere in the New Testament is it written that ‘Christ rose for our sins’…Of course, the resurrection is essential to confirm the efficacy of his death…But we must insist that Christ’s work of sin-bearing was finished on the cross, that the victory over the devil, sin and death was won there, and that what the resurrection did was to vindicate the Jesus whom men had rejected, to declare with power that he is the Son of God, and publicly to confirm that his sin-bearing death had been effective for the forgiveness of sins. If he had not been raised, our faith and our preaching would be futile, since his person and work would not have received the divine endorsement. This is the implication of Romans 4:25, which at first sight seems to teach that Christ’s resurrection is the means of our justification: ‘He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.’ Charles Cranfield explains: ‘What was necessitated by our sins was, in the first place, Christ’s atoning death, and yet, had his death not been followed by his resurrection, it would not have been God’s mighty deed for our justification.’ In addition, because of the resurrection it is a living Christ who bestows on us the salvation he has won for us on the cross, who enables us by his Spirit not only to share in the merit of his death but also to live in the power of his resurrection, and who promises us that on the last day we too will have resurrection bodies.

“James Denney expresses the relation between Jesus’ death and resurrection this way: ‘There can be no salvation from sin unless there is a living Saviour: this explains the emphasis laid by the apostle on the resurrection. But the living One can be a Saviour only because he has died: this explains the emphasis laid on the cross. The Christian believes in a living Lord, or he could not believe at all; but he believes in a living Lord who dies an atoning death, for no other can hold the faith of a soul under the doom of sin.’”

–John R W Stott, The Cross of Christ (Downer’s Grove, InterVaristy Press, 2006), pp,237-238

Worship for Easter Day

Join us online for the live stream of our Easter Day Eucharist from 10am, or catch up later today on our website.

You can watch the service here >> https://t.co/qxjpLWgFGv pic.twitter.com/6Ek389CvFd

— Hereford Cathedral (@HFDCathedral) April 4, 2021

There is also downloadable option there.

Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” John 20 pic.twitter.com/kSisRpFqOH

— ICE (@ICEontario) April 16, 2023

From here:

“The heart of the earth has accepted and received the Son of God; and it is from a womb so consecrated, this womb of the ‘hellish’ depths of human existence, that the saved creature rises up. Not just (not even temporarily) in the Son alone. It is not that he alone descended and so rose again as victor because death could not hold him captive. ‘Even now’ he is not the firstborn among the dead in the sense that he is even now the only human being to have found the complete fulfillment of his whole human reality. . . . the Son of Man ‘cannot’ have risen alone. What, we may ask, is really to be understood by his glorified bodily condition (if we take it seriously, and don’t spiritualize it into another way of talking about his eternal ‘communion with God’) right up to the ‘Last Day’, if meanwhile it should persist all by itself—something which is precisely unthinkable for the bodily condition (though glorified)? So when we find in Mt 27:52 s. that other bodies too, those of saints, rose up with him (indeed even ‘appeared’—as he himself did—to show that the end of the ages has already come upon us), this is merely positive evidence from Scripture for what we would have expected anyway, if definitive salvation has already been unshakably founded, death conquered, and a man, for whom it is never good to be alone, has entered upon the fulfillment of his whole being. Hence to try to set aside this testimony from Matthew as a ‘mythological’ intrusion, or to argue away its eschatological meaning with ingenious evasions—such as that it is merely a matter of a temporary resurrection or even of ‘phantom bodies’—would not be in accord with the authoritative voice of Scripture. It is a fact that by far the greater part of the Fathers and the theologians, right up to the present day, have firmly maintained the eschatological interpretation of the text as the only one possible from the exegetical point of view.”

He is Risen! Michelangelo's magisterial vision of the Resurrected Christ bursting from the tomb into the dazzling light, c.1532. Happy Easter! https://t.co/94kCw2wJgy pic.twitter.com/wK8qPIqCXP

— Rosie Razzall (@RazzallRosie) April 21, 2019

We are an Easter people living in the story that started under the bright stars in a stable at Bethlehem, moved into the darkness that shrouded Christ on the cross, and now stands breathless before biggest occasion to crash into our history. Fleming Rutledge calls it “the transhistorical event,” where the true nature of God was revealed in Christ.

Rutledge says:

The resurrection is not a set piece. It is not an isolated demonstration of divine dazzlement… Since the resurrection is God’s mighty transhistorical Yes to the historically crucified Son, we can assert that the crucifixion is the most important historical event that has ever happened. …The resurrection ratifies the cross as the way “until He comes.” The Crucifixion (44)

We live in the now and the ‘not yet.’ And in the meantime, which is what we have—the ‘meantime’—our songs are like those in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings on the Fields of Cormallen, where the minstrel sang to all the host “until their hearts, wounded with sweet words, overflowed, and their joy was like swords, and they passed in thought out to regions where pain and delight flow together, and tears are the very wine of blessedness.”

Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again! Alleluia!

Read it all.

‘They recognised him at the breaking of bread.’

May we too recognise the presence of the risen Lord this day.

Icon by ⁦@mikeq00L⁩ pic.twitter.com/NpfZz7OSyL

— Audrey Hamilton 🌻🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 🙏🇺🇦 (@AudieHamilton) April 20, 2022

O Lord God Almighty, whose blessed Son our Saviour Jesus Christ did on the third day rise triumphant over death: Raise us, we beseech thee, from the death of sin unto the life of righteousness, that we may seek those things which are above, where he sitteth on thy right hand in glory; and this we beg for the sake of the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Resurrection, portable icon, by Ilias Moskos, 1679. From the collections of the Byzantine Museum of Athens #Onthisday #byzantine #museum #athens #GreekEaster #Easter2018 #EasterSaturday pic.twitter.com/RksC1gBlaP

— Byzantine Museum (@byzantinemuseum) April 7, 2018

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.

–Psalm 1:1-3

When you feel that you have no more light to give, remember that God is the fuel for our lamps. 💛 God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." (Hebrews 13:5). #sunrise #naturephotography pic.twitter.com/t45hyLLJmI

— Lee-Anne Gibbon (@LeeAnneGibbon1) April 17, 2023

Kigali convention center for #gafcon23 pic.twitter.com/9adCaXh485

— Didace Niyifasha (@DidaceNiyifasha) April 16, 2023

So, how can we learn to live as wide-awake people, as Easter people? Here I have some bracing suggestion to make. I have to believe that many churches simply throw Easter away year by year; and I want to plead that we rethink how we do it so as to help each other, as a church and as individuals, to live what we profess.

For a start, consider Easter Day itself…Easter is about the wild delight of God’s creative power—…we ought to shout Alleluias instead of murmuring them; we should light every candle in the building instead of only some; we should give every man, woman, child, cat, dog, and mouse in the place a candle to hold; we should have a real bonfire; and we should splash water about as we renew our baptismal vows…It’s about the real Jesus coming out of the real tomb and getting God’s real new creation under way.

But my biggest problem starts on Easter Monday. I regard it as absurd and unjustifiable that we should spend forty days keeping Lent, pondering what it means, preaching about self-denial, being at least a little gloomy, and then bringing it all to a peak with Holy Week, which in turn climaxes in Maundy Thursday and Good Friday…and then, after a rather odd Holy Saturday, we have a single day of celebration.

…Easter week itself ought not to be the time when all the clergy sigh with relief and go on holiday. It ought to be an eight-day festival, with champagne served after morning prayer or even before, with lots of alleluias and extra hymns and spectacular anthems. Is it any wonder people find it hard to believe in the resurrection of Jesus if we don’t throw our hats in the air? Is it any wonder we find it hard to live the resurrection if we don’t do it exuberantly in our liturgies? Is it any wonder the world doesn’t take much notice if Easter is celebrated as simply the one-day happy ending tacked on to forty days of fasting and gloom?

…we should be taking steps to celebrate Easter in creative new ways: in art, literature, children’s games, poetry, music, dance, festivals, bells, special concerts, anything that comes to mind. This is our greatest festival. Take Christmas away, and in biblical terms you lose two chapters at the front of Matthew and Luke, nothing else. Take Easter away, and you don’t have a New Testament; you don’t have a Christianity; as Paul says, you are still in your sins…

…if Lent is a time to give things up, Easter ought to be a time to take things up….Christian holiness was never meant to be merely negative…. The forty days of the Easter season, until the ascension, ought to be a time to balance out Lent by taking something up, some new task or venture, something wholesome and fruitful and outgoing and self-giving. …if you really make a start on it, it might give you a sniff of new possibilities, new hopes, new ventures you never dreamed of. It might bring something of Easter into your innermost life. It might help you wake up in a whole new way. And that’s what Easter is all about.”

—Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (New York: HarperCollins, 2008) pp. 255-257

Incredulity of Saint Thomas (1602)
by Caravaggio
Style: Baroque#art #painting #artoftheday #Caravaggio #Baroque pic.twitter.com/ZtAon56gP4

— Art On Timeline (@ArtOnTimeline) April 13, 2023

Almighty and everlasting God, who in the Paschal mystery established the new covenant of reconciliation: Grant that all who have been reborn into the fellowship of Christ’s Body may show forth in their lives what they profess by their faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

The Church at Dyer
… formerly, Dyer United Methodist Church#AlmostHeaven #WestVirginia #Highlands #Faith #Hope #Love #ThePhotoHour pic.twitter.com/GSUilHdvXj

— Thomas R Fletcher (@ThomasRFletcher) April 16, 2023

Like newborn babes, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up to salvation; for you have tasted the kindness of the Lord.

Come to him, to that living stone, rejected by men but in God’s sight chosen and precious; and like living stones be yourselves built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
For it stands in scripture:

“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious,
and he who believes in him will not be put to shame.”

To you therefore who believe, he is precious, but for those who do not believe,

“The very stone which the builders rejected
has become the head of the corner,”

and

“A stone that will make men stumble,
a rock that will make them fall”;

for they stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were no people but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy but now you have received mercy.

–1 Peter 2:2-10

Good Morning pic.twitter.com/QMmLzcAutF

— philip jackson (@pajacksonartist) April 16, 2023

God of glory,
by the raising of your Son
you have broken the chains of death and hell:
through your Spirit fill your Church with faith and hope;
for a new day has dawned
and the way to life stands open
in our Saviour Jesus Christ.
Amen (slightly edited–KSH).

John 21:1-14
The disciple Jesus loved said to Peter, ‘It is the Lord.’ At these words ‘It is the Lord’, Simon Peter, who had practically nothing on,wrapped his cloak round him and jumped into the water. The other disciples came on in the boat, towing the net and the fish…#Gospel pic.twitter.com/339WXcyd0m

— Kalina Boulter (@Kalina_Boulter) April 14, 2023

Heavenly Father, you have delivered us from the dominion of sin and death, and brought us into the kingdom of your beloved Son: Grant that, as by his death he has called us to life, so by his love he may raise us to eternal joys; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

A fairy portal of a blackthorn holloway 🤍
Bitterns booming & marsh harriers wheeling above. #Southwold pic.twitter.com/djuBg5pnBy

— Beatrice Groves (@beatricegroves1) April 15, 2023

O Lord, thou art my God;
I will exalt thee, I will praise thy name;
for thou hast done wonderful things,
plans formed of old, faithful and sure.
For thou hast made the city a heap,
the fortified city a ruin;
the palace of aliens is a city no more,
it will never be rebuilt.
Therefore strong peoples will glorify thee;
cities of ruthless nations will fear thee.
For thou hast been a stronghold to the poor,
a stronghold to the needy in his distress,
a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat;
for the blast of the ruthless is like a storm against a wall,
like heat in a dry place.
Thou dost subdue the noise of the aliens;
as heat by the shade of a cloud,
so the song of the ruthless is stilled.

On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of fat things, a feast of wine on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wine on the lees well refined. And he will destroy on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death for ever, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth; for the Lord has spoken.

It will be said on that day, “Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the Lord; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”

–Isaiah 25:1-9

“Let us stand aright, let us attend how we spend our lives, following Christ who rose from the dead.”
– Bishop Mihail of Australia and New Zealandhttps://t.co/er8cOHuAdB
📷 @BasilicaPhotos pic.twitter.com/UuNn86RfCS

— Basilica.ro (EN) (@BasilicaNews) April 15, 2023

O God, who for our redemption didst give thine only begotten Son to the death of the cross, and by his glorious resurrection hast delivered us from the power of the enemy: Grant us to die daily to sin, that we may evermore live with him in the joy of his resurrection; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.

Titian’s magnificent Averoldi Polyptych, with the resurrection at its centre. A triumphant and blazing Christ above a dawn dark yellow and grey sky. He holds the Crusader banner as an emblem of the church. Happy Easter! pic.twitter.com/rLhvr0uDzw

— Venice Art Guide (@VeniceArtGuide) April 21, 2019

If there’s anything Catholics in the United States should have learned over the past two decades, it’s that order—in the world, the republic, and the Church—is a fragile thing. And by “order,” I don’t mean the same old same old. Rather, I mean the dynamic development of world politics, our national life, and the Church within stable reference points that guide us into the future.

Many of those reference points seem to have come unstuck, and that’s why we’re experiencing an unusual amount of air turbulence these days….Those who don’t remember the two decades immediately after Vatican II and haven’t taken the trouble to learn that history are understandably upset by the fragility of order in the Church today. But they should also understand that this is not 1968, or 1978, or even 1988, and that a lot of ballast was put into the Barque of Peter during the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI. For all the challenges it faces, and despite the determination of some to revisit what they regard as the glorious Seventies, the Church in the U.S. is in far, far better condition to withstand the air turbulence of the moment than it was forty years ago. And that’s because truth, spoken winsomely and in charity, but without fudging, has proven a powerful instrument of evangelization and spiritual growth in a culture wallowing in various confusions.

At the bottom of the bottom line is the Resurrection. It’s entirely possible to hold fast to the truth that Jesus of Nazareth was raised by God to a new form of bodily life after his crucifixion and be deeply concerned about the state of the Church today. But it’s not possible to know the Risen Lord and to indulge in despair. Despair died on the cross and unshakeable hope was born at Easter. That’s why Easter faith is the surest anchor for all of us in turbulent times.

Read it all.

Good morning all
Buenas dias pic.twitter.com/l8fulrqkHS

— Mystic Mel (@Melshenny1) April 14, 2023

Listen to it all.

Today that question, that debate—Did Jesus really rise from the dead historically, bodily?—is not as prominent or as intense because, at one level, people feel that it doesn’t matter to them, because different people believe in different things, and maybe it happened, maybe it didn’t; and if it did, or didn’t, and that helps you get along in life, fine; but it doesn’t make much difference to me. I may or may not call myself a Christian, and if the resurrection seems helpful to me, I may believe it; and if it doesn’t, then I won’t, and I don’t think any body should tell me that I have to.

Behind those two different kinds of unbelief–the kind from 40 years ago and the kind from the present day–is a different set of assumptions. For example, in my college days the assumption pretty much still held sway, though it was starting to give way with the rise of existentialism, that there are fixed, closed natural laws, that make the world understandable and scientifically manageable, and these laws do not allow the truth of the claim that someone has risen from the dead to live forever. That was a commonly held assumption: The modern world with its scientific understanding of natural laws does not allow for resurrections. So unbelief was often rooted in that kind of assumption.

But today, that’s not the most common working assumption. Today the assumption is not that there are natural laws outside of me forbidding the resurrection of Jesus, but there is a personal law inside of me that says: I don’t have to adapt my life to anything I don’t find helpful. Or you could state it another way: Truth for me is what I find acceptable and helpful.

Read it all.

'Alleluia! Christ is risen!'

Wishing you a very Happy Easter from all of us at Westminster Abbey pic.twitter.com/BZrxOqK5ax

— Westminster Abbey (@wabbey) April 9, 2023

From there:

Not darkness but twilight
In which even the best
of minds must make its way
now. And slowly the questions
occur, vague but formidable
for all that. We pass our hands
over their surface like blind
men feeling for the mechanism
that will swing them aside. They
yield, but only to re-form
as new problems; and one
does not even do that
but towers immovable
before us.

Is there no way
of other thought of answering
its challenge? There is an anticipation
of it to the point of
dying. There have been times
when, after long on my knees
in a cold chancel, a stone has rolled
from my mind, and I have looked
in and seen the old questions lie
folded and in a place
by themselves, like the piled
graveclothes of love’s risen body.

God,however, raised him from the dead, and to that fact we are the witnesses; and it is the name of Jesus which,through our faith in it, has brought back the strength of this man whom you see here and who is well known to you. It is faith in that name that has restored this man… pic.twitter.com/aDGKfEFLmY

— Kalina Boulter (@Kalina_Boulter) April 13, 2023

Almighty Father, who gave your only Son to die for our sins and to rise for our justification: Give us grace so to put away the leaven of malice and wickedness, that we may always serve you in purity of life; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

A Pleasant Early Morning. 9°C. Ewes and Lambs. pic.twitter.com/QNrZo7rfNd

— Yorkshire Wolds Weather (@WeatherWolds) April 14, 2023

“At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people. And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time; but at that time your people shall be delivered, every one whose name shall be found written in the book. And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever. But you, Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, until the time of the end. Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.”

–Daniel 12:1-4

Happy Friday 🌷🐿️🌷 pic.twitter.com/fGWVtJFNUG

— Veronica in the Fens 🧚🏼‍♀️ (@VeronicaJoPo) April 14, 2023

We believe Christ’s resurrection can be proved with at least as much certainty as any universally believed and well-documented event in ancient history. To prove this, we do not need to presuppose anything controversial (e.g. that miracles happen). But the skeptic must also not presuppose anything (e.g. that they do not). We do not need to presuppose that the New Testament is infallible, or divinely inspired or even true. We do not need to presuppose that there really was an empty tomb or post-resurrection appearances, as recorded. We need to presuppose only two things, both of which are hard data, empirical data, which no one denies: The existence of the New Testament texts as we have them, and the existence (but not necessarily the truth) of the Christian religion as we find it today.

The question is this: Which theory about what really happened in Jerusalem on that first Easter Sunday can account for the data?

There are five possible theories: Christianity, hallucination, myth, conspiracy and swoon.

1. Jesus died. Jesus rose. [ Christianity ]

2. Jesus died. Jesus didn’t rise—apostles deceived. [Hallucination]

3. Jesus died. Jesus didn’t rise—apostles myth-makers [ Myth ]

4. Jesus died. Jesus didn’t rise—apostles deceivers [ Conspiracy ]

5. Jesus didn’t die. [ Swoon ]

Read it all.

THE SUPPER AT EMMAUS, Caravaggio, 1601 – National Gallery, London
The wine is not mentioned in The Bible, probaby because Christ’s blessing of the bread was enough for the disciples to recognise him. The risen Christ once again performs the Eucharist before the Emmaus pilgrims. pic.twitter.com/bbId6mRSmu

— The Virtual Wine Museum – Le Musée Virtuel du Vin (@VIRTWINEMUSEUM) April 17, 2022