Many people around us find the Christian faith to be confusing, ambiguous and incongruous to the point of being incoherent. It seems always to be asserting paradoxical and mysterious truths ­ about God, the world, ourselves, salvation. They long for something simpler and without so many dimensions. By the time you get this letter, Christians will have just celebrated two of the greatest days of the Christian calendar, falling as they do within three days of each other, Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Talk about paradox! What a strange combination, unjust death by nightmarish torture and victorious triumph over death itself. It is as if people would say, "Give us one or the other, but don't make us try to hold the two together in such extreme tension".

Many can relate best to Easter. They don't want to hear about crucifixions. Easter is a symbol of spring. Flowers are replacing the snow and ice. The world is getting better. Democracy has triumphed. The free market is the way for collective growth and individual virtue. Confidence in it has spiritual dimensions, and the promises of technology are limitless. Evolution is now within our control. Don't be a nay-sayer or a wet blanket. Or others might say that even if the world is not getting better, we are growing in our sense of its harmony. Real spiritual growth is inner growth. Death is just part of the human life cycle. It is natural. We should think positive thoughts and not let ourselves get preoccupied with death.

These pro-Easter voices can find support in the Bible. Jesus' own disciples tried to dissuade him going to the cross. Surely there can be some sort of Easter hope without crucifying anybody. Satan's greatest temptation of Jesus was offering him all the kingdoms of the earth right then at the start of his ministry ­if Jesus would only worship him. It was an amazing offer of a single, universal religion, which could have been called "Christian". All people would have become followers of Jesus without Jesus having to go to the cross, without Good Friday ­and without salvation for any of them.

Then there are the voices that relate more to Good Friday than to Easter. They see Jesus' crucifixion as symbolic of what happens to idealists in this world, those who think they can change the world for the better. Easter is for the naïve and the self-deceived, those who through their own weaknesses need an artificial source of security and reassurance to face the bleak world. The strong, the honest and the courageous can face it without the crutch that belief in God provides. Don't let the flowers of spring fool you. Death is very real and ultimately final, with nothing beyond. The world is a cold and amoral place that doesn't care any more about you than it cares about how you treat anybody else.

Again, there are Biblical parallels. It is as the Psalmist wrote, "we are like the beasts that perish". That perishing reduces human meanings to the vanity described by the Preacher of Ecclesiastes. You see something of the same spirit in Thomas, Jesus' disciple, who would believe only what he could see with his own eyes, which wasn't much. When warned of the danger for Jesus in going to Jerusalem, he said, "Let us go that we may die with him", then believed Jesus was still dead on Easter morning. The reality of death on Good Friday is the only reality ­ except Good Friday cannot be called good. 

Reinhold Niebuhr called the space that separates these two positions a "chasm of incongruity", across which there is no human bridge. All each side does is to deny the reality of the other side. One side says that death isn't so real and important because the spiritual dimension to life is eternal. The other says that the spiritual isn't eternal because of the reality of death. Neither side makes adequate sense of the extremes of our world or of our own experience of them. 

God in Christ bridges across this chasm of incongruity. Good Friday is absolutely necessary. Sin must be paid for, justice done. People didn't and still don't realize that they are in such deep trouble that they need a salvation on that scale. But there was no other way than God himself, crucified. But Easter Sunday is just as central and necessary to the picture. Death could not hold him. The raised Jesus demonstrated both that the debt of sin had been paid in full and also that death itself was defeated, beginning a new creation. Faith embraces the incongruity between ruin and glory. It disavows human solutions and accepts human weakness. But it also grasps a God-given destiny that takes us far beyond those weaknesses.

We have just finished our winter term and are getting ready to go to the members' meeting in England. The winter term went well. We began with a special two-week, intensive course in cultural apologetics offered to a full house of students from Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary. This was a great chance to spend time with a wonderful group of people, preparing for all sorts of different kinds of work. They all responded well to the emphasis on trying to understand modern culture and also to the possibility for more discussion than in their normal courses. After a few days of collapse we than began the regular term with L'Abri students. 

This group of students took longer to function together as a group than usual, but they had real respect for each other even though they were vastly different from each other. Sometimes we see immediate fruit in students' ideas and lives that is very evident during the term. As we discussed the term with each other we realized that for many it was less obvious and we will not really know the impact of their time here until later. We are sometimes nearly overwhelmed by the things students have come from as well as what we know they will face when they leave. Do pray for God's continuing work in their lives.

We are thankful for those who have given to the work, which has left us in better shape financially than usual at this time of the year. We look forward to catching up on overdue maintenance.

We are grateful for good speaking opportunities this term. I spoke at the Rochester L'Abri conference, Carlton College, Covenant Seminary, Azusa Pacific University and Harvard. Mardi spoke at Wellesley and Boston University. Both Mark and I preached at our respective churches.

We are grateful also for the generosity of several publishers, giving us commentaries for our library, as well as the town giving us logs to cut up for firewood.

Jonathan and Tobiah were really good helpers last term, serving a lot of meals, serving lots of meals, shoveling a lot of snow and helping to create a good atmosphere. Tobiah comes back this next term to help again.

Thank God for a good year at school for Luke and Nate. Pray for our members' meeting, with many decisions to make about the future. 

Pray for Sue Morrell who will be going to Australia this summer with Luke and Nate, to be with her family. 

Pray for this new group of students, who will be coming for the summer, that God would direct the right ones here. 

Pray also for our lecturing, tutoring, discussions and informal times with them that God would use the time in a powerful way. Ask God to be with us in our two summer conferences, in Charlotte, NC July 30 ­ Aug. 3, and Portland, OR Aug. 7-10. Come if you can.

Ask God to continue his material provision for L'Abri. 

Pray for the safe arrival of our first grandchild. Chris and his wife Liz are expecting in early May. 

Pray also for the safe arrival of Terri and Mark's first child in July (most likely during term). And ask God to be with us in his power that he would enable us to show something of how life can be lived through the incongruities of ruin and glory. 

Dick Keyes.