Dear All,

It is true. I have become obsessed with 'Wallander'. From the moment I first saw Kenneth Branagh playing the morose, Swedish, angst ridden TV detective I have hunted down the series in the TV schedules and now moved on to reading Henning Mankell's excellent novels. I've never really taken to crime novels before but Wallander is different - an excellent plot, a complicated investigation that rattles through to a satisfying conclusion all in the space of 500 pages

One of the things I like about Wallander is his ability to 'read' a crime scene. He will spend hours at the scene of a crime trying to piece together in his mind ‘what happened': searching out those clues that are present at the scene just needing him to find them and alert to the possibility that the scene may be missing some itemthat ought to be present - its absence filling in yet more of the picture.

This month of April begins with an event seeking an explanation: The Resurrection. No one has ever been argued into the Kingdom of God but Christians need not fear asking questions about 'what happened' on that first Easter Day. It may be tempting to treat the Resurrection as a metaphor for some vague 'eternal hopefulness' in life but the events of the Gospels are rooted in history and can stand up to historical investigation.

If Jesus had not been raised from the dead why did the authorities not produce his body for all to see? If he had not died at all on the cross (just fainted?) how on earth could a battered, tortured man show himself to his followers as the 'Lord of Life'? How do we account for the transformation of the disciples from a group of distraught followers to a sect that took on the Roman Empire in declaring that Jesus (not Caesar) was Lord? Can we really believe that these people were lying? Do liars go to their deaths with such courage? Surely 'mass hallucination' wears off under pressure - the apostle Paul records over 500 people seeing Jesus after the Resurrection in his first letter to the Corinthians, were they all deluded? Why would the gospel writers put the women at the front of the Easter message when a woman's testimony in the culture of the time was regarded with suspicion? – it would have been wiser to change the story to give it more credibility. And how do we account for lives transformed and for that curious institution we call the 'Church' if He is not risen and present to His followers?

It's the greatest mystery of them all but solving it continues to make a difference to people. Why not look at the Gospels again and see what you think took place?