Why I think Easter is Relevant

I wrote this recently for a local magazine:

In the Easter story, Pilate asks: “What is truth?” and, famously, he did not wait for an answer. He did not know what to do with the fact of Jesus standing before him.

These days, it is controversial even to believe that there can be any form of absolute truth, let alone stating what that truth might be. Everyone has the right to one’s own opinion.

In schools today, skills are valued more than content, which is seen as arbitrary: every topic has a changing context and a notional shelf-life. Swathes of content covered today may be obsolete by the time the children leave school.

So, it is perhaps unusual to live one’s life from an absolute. Believing in Jesus means that I have a premise from which to work that I find makes life purposeful and hopeful. If Jesus rose from the dead then death is not the end; life has purpose beyond survival and conservation; hope becomes real and everything matters: and matters eternally.

Ironically, as Pilate asked his question, he was facing Jesus, who had once said, “I am the way, the truth and the life”. The Truth was right there, and he was a person.

Uncertainty may be an unnecessary sea to swim in, despite prevailing attitudes. Two images come to mind from old songs: “On Christ the solid rock I stand; All other ground is sinking sand,” and “We have an anchor that keeps the soul … fastened to the rock which cannot move; grounded firm and deep in the Saviour’s love.”

The ‘rocks’ in these songs are absolutes on which I find it possible to live, because of Easter. So much in life is arbitrary, temporary and subjective and Pilate’s exasperation with the question of truth is understandable: but if Jesus is the truth, then he is the way, and the life too, and all else follows.

I like that the truth is a person, rather than a set of facts. The apostle Paul says this of Jesus, that: “in (him) are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

And so I want to know more truth: more about Jesus.