Thought for the week: The Gospel affirms the blessings which follow for believers
Rudyard Kipling, awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907, was the first English author to be so honoured.
Kipling, deemed a colonialist by his critics, was an accomplished pen-man writing poems and stories which had wide appeal with the "man in the street".
Popular conversation often included Kipling's lines as he excelled as a phrase maker. His poem 'If'' is constantly anthologised.
This poem is a classic example of the conditional sentence, in which given a certain condition definite results automatically follow. In this poem, Kipling lists at least seven conditions, which if complied with, the person addressed in the poem will "Be a Man, my Son".
St Paul employed the same literary format when he addressed the Corinthians on the centrality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ as to the veracity of the Christian faith. He wrote: "If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost". The chilling condition - if Christ is not raised - brings on, inevitably, these shattering consequences listed above. All hinges in the resurrection of Jesus.
Jesus did not effect His own resurrection; Jesus was raised by the power of God and that event was the divine imprimatur on His redemptive work. All Jesus came to do had been accomplished; the full revelation of God, the; the fulfilment of the prophets, the defeat of Satan and the redemption of the world. When Jesus cried "it is finished", His work was done and to vindicate His Son, God raised Him from the dead.
The Gospel affirms the blessings which follow for the believer. If Christ had not been raised then our faith was empty; our sins were and are not annulled and any anticipation we have of reunion in glory is a dream unfulfilled. But Christ has been raised and our trust has been vindicated; our sins are forgiven and Jesus, the Lord of the universe, keeps our beloved dead in His gracious keeping.