The Parish Church next to Arundel Castle is full of impressive tombs and monuments, including, on the wall facing the door, a large crucifix. One day, a little girl of about seven or eight walked in and saw this, then turned to her parents and asked, "Why didn't He come down?"

On Good Friday, the same question was asked, not with the logic of an innocent child but with the cynicism of jeering abusers: "If you're so wonderful, so powerful, why don't you come down from the cross?"

(Remember Herod in Jesus Christ, Super- star? "Prove to me that you're divine: Turn my water into wine!" )

Remember Jesus facing up to that same testing in the wilderness? "The devil took him to Jerusalem and set him on the parapet of the temple. 'If you are the Son of God,' he said, 'throw yourself down . . .' "

"Who is he?" people were to ask each other, marvelling at the stories of miracles performed, enthralled by teaching the like of which they had never heard before. "Is it the Messiah come at last?"

Everything He said made inspiring sense. He taught people how to live. He made sense of the Law, and of the world they knew. There had never been a prophet like Him. He even empowered others to teach and to heal.

But who was He?

John, who had baptised Him, heard the stories in his prison. But John, along with many others, expected the special One whose coming was foretold to behave in a certain way, to do certain things. There was to be 'judgement' and 'deliverance'. This did not seem to be happening, and even John sent to ask, "Who are you? Are you the one who is to come, or are we to expect some other?"

Jesus made no claims, rose to no challenges to prove who He was.

Even Jesus's own closest followers were not entirely sure: "Some think you are really John the Baptist, or maybe Elijah returned, or Jeremiah, or . . . ."

It was Peter who, inspired, suddenly saw it all: "You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God!"

Imagine the excitement!

But Jesus gave His disciples strict orders not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

He was to suffer, he told them, and be killed and be raised again three days later. They protested at this despondent talk, and Peter even rebuked Him and had to be told, "Away with you, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me. You think as men think, not as God thinks."

"Why didn't he come down?" was the child's logical question. "If you're so wonderful, why don't you come down?" shouted the jeerers. Thinking as men think.

They thought it was the nails that held Him on the cross. It is hard for mere men and women, living in the context of a par- ticular place and time, to try to comprehend the time-free purposes of God.

It was love that held Jesus to the cross. Love for and obedience to His Father, love for his friends and disciples, love for all mankind, for those who had been before Him and for those who were to come after Him. Love for us.

Three days later, as He had foretold, He rose again, and now that all was completed the amazing truth could be told.

At the end of this month, we shall celebrate again, with joy and reverence, that extraordinary event in others' time, nearly two thousand years ago, that changed men's thinking for ever.

"Christ is risen!" "He is risen indeed!"

Rick

next page From Registers