We celebrate Easter because Christ is risen

For almost two millennia many have attempted to destroy Christianity and they are still trying, lately with renewed vigour in Europe and the United States. The enemies of the Catholic Church and of the other Christian Churches maintain, among other things, that Jesus Christ never existed, that his "existence" is a myth built on legend and they question the historicity of the gospels.

What they are at a loss to explain is why the disciples of Jesus endured the terrible historically-documented tortures and deaths they suffered if Christ had not truly risen from the tomb. From mourning their leader and hiding in fear from his killers, Christ's disciples fearlessly came out in public and began telling everybody they had seen Jesus alive. Neither the Romans nor the Jews, nor anybody else disproved their story by producing the body of Jesus. If their story had been a hoax or a hallucination, it is impossible to believe that they would have been so rash and reckless about the consequences and so tenacious in their determination to spread His word.

If they had had the slightest doubt about his resurrection, they would never have risked their lives and faced the dreadful sufferings each of them went through until death. If theirs had been a planned conspiracy to perpetuate a fiction, it is inconceivable that every single one of them could have kept it a secret until his death. Christ's disciples did not die for an ideology, or to gain wealth for themselves or their families, or to acquire virgins in heaven. These followers of Christ were mostly rough-and-ready down-to-earth fishermen, who knew the world and who could not be easily fooled. One of them even needed to poke his fingers into Christ's wounds before he could bring himself to acknowledge the amazing thing that had happened.

What actually took place was beyond the control of the Romans and the Jews. It was also beyond the control of the disciples and it altered their lives irreversibly. And what took place cannot but be that Jesus had truly risen from his tomb. A poor, ignorant, unarmed and insignificant group of ordinary people genuinely experienced Christ's resurrection physically. That fact alone enabled them to take on the unbending Jewish establishment and the might of imperial Rome and prevail.

Christians, therefore, have an excellent reason to rejoice at Easter as they are reminded of the way their Lord conquered death and of his promise of everlasting life for all who believe in him. On Easter Sunday in Russia an Orthodox believer will greet you with the words "Christ is risen" and you reply saying: "He is risen indeed!"

A happy Easter to all.