The Passion – it’s no hoax!

You can find all sorts of interesting Car Bumper Stickers – one that amused me stated “My mind’s made up. Don’t confuse me with the facts.”

All sorts of interesting discoveries have at first been dismissed as a hoax. One of the more obscure was the discovery, back in the 19th Century, of the
duckbilled platypus.

Apparently when reports first filtered back to the UK about this curious creature, experts did dismiss it as a hoax. The descriptions seemed to be unbelievable. The mystery animal was said to be furry, the size of a rabbit, with webbed feet and a bill like a duck. But the most extraordinary feature was the claim that it laid eggs, unlike any known mammal. To prove the animal’s existence, a skin was sent for examination, but zoologists dismissed it.

It took several years for the experts to accept the creature’s existence. Finally in 1884, a female platypus was shot after laying an egg and was found to have another egg in her body. The experts then revised their opinions(!) and announced that the platypus was truly unique as an egg laying mammal.

The very centre of the Christian Faith is the message of Easter – a message that will be celebrated by Christians around the world. The Apostle Paul writing to the Corinthian Christians stated – “For what I received I passed on to you as of FIRST IMPORTANCE; that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures ...”
(1 Corinthians 15v.3-4).

The death and resurrection of Jesus are fundamental – without them the
Christian Gospel would no longer be the Christian Gospel. But are they true?
Did God’s Son die and rise again?
Christians believe that there is much evidence for both the death and resurrection of
Jesus.

This year we are privileged in Highworth to be participating in the Highworth Passion which will, through music and drama, declare these events and indeed all the events of the Passion.
It is a good time to investigate them further. Any of the Christian Churches in Highworth will be happy to share about the events and their meaning. In reply to the statement “My mind’s made up. Don’t confuse me with the facts”, Christians would wish to say:

Do please investigate the facts. We believe that The Resurrection is not a hoax, but the biggest fact of history.
Happy Easter!

John W H Wiltshire, Methodist Minister