the sharer of all our other secrets, can enter. This is not to say that others cannot strengthen and support us, and even share or guide some of our conscious thoughts: indeed they can and indeed they should. But death, it seems to me, is essentially a personal encounter which we, so far as this world is concerned, have to conduct on our own. It is, we know, a personal encounter with God, and God, we also know, is a God of love. We may therefore think that it will prove a loving and merciful encounter, the end of our trial and tribulations and the beginning of eternal happiness. So, in the ultimate sense, it undoubtedly will be. But everything that I have both read and experienced forces me to assert that God is totally beyond our comprehension. Whenever he intervenes in human history, at whatever level and in whatever way, he invariably seems to leave man bemused and uncomprehending. From the opening chapter of Holy Scripture to its very last, despite all that God has revealed to us about himself and our relationship with him throughout the whole of human history, and despite the immense volume of prayer, thought and study that the believing world has given to this ever unfolding revelation, we still fail to recognise God for what he really is, even the very best of us. How poignant, and also how revealing, is the cry of Jesus faced at the end of his life’s work, as he was, by the incredulity of his apostles: ‘What, Philip, here have I been all this time with you and still you do not recognise me.’ How equally poignant that other cry seven centuries earlier 6
b. 04 Death and Resurrection.indd 6
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