"I am the resurrection and the life", says the Lord.

People like pictures. Most of our thinking is done that way. Even if we have never been inside an Art Gallery in our lives, we still largely read the world through pictures. Body language will often convey at least as much of the message to us, as any words do. This is why we often feel at such a loss if we find ourselves unable to picture something. Nowhere is this more true than in our grasp of the great truths of our Faith. And at this time of the year this means the Resurrection.

For some resurrection cannot be allowed to mean anything less than full-scale resuscitation, a restoration of the life we had before death, minus the pain. For others such a picture of resurrection is childish and much less than the glowing image of a reality we simply cannot imagine. For help we should turn to the Gospels; where else? In the darkness of the cross, Jesus had his own pictures shattered as he felt abandoned even by God. In turn his triumph over the grave was something his disciples grasped only as the pictures became clearer. For the disciple John, the sight of the empty tomb was enough. Peter needed something more reassuring. Thomas had to wrestle with it all, until the moment when he was granted something close to a private audience with Christ. Nothing has changed.

There have always been people, and there always will be people, who cannot believe anything their imaginations cannot picture. It is for us "believers" to offer them the pictures they crave. In the end people will not be satisfied by attempts to explain or defend. The resurrection calls not for proof, but for witness, for testimony. People's need for pictures to stir them to belief, will only be satisfied by the sight of people living spirit-driven, "Resurrection" lives. Such a picture is usually referred to as "The Church," which is where we come in.