"They think it's all over...

"It is now!"

Those famous words could have been used on Monday at Headingley, where the England cricket squad faced South Africa. Tension was high.

One side needed only a couple of wickets; the other a handful of runs. Then, suddenly, it was all over.

Ntini was out LBW to Gough; the match - and the series - was clinched. Tension dissolved into jubilation; years of defeat were swallowed up in victory.

My two young sons were lucky enough to be present, along with a friend and his mum. Not a bad choice of occasion for their first taste of live international cricket - England's first win for over a decade!

Now just suppose, in years to come, England return to their losing ways, and sceptical voices are raised about this week's event:

"They never really won that match."

"It's all made up - it never actually happened!"

Arguments pro and con will be marshalled; debates will be held, people will take side. But there will be those, like my two boys, who will be able to say. "It did happen: I was there."

At the centre of the Christian Faith is an event; the dying and rising of Jesus Christ.

Two thousand years later, many glibly claim, "Of course, it's all made up; it never really happened."

Yet the Bible carries the accounts of those who were there; who saw him die - and who saw him risen. Their remarkable claims were being made openly and boldly from the start. And they often lost their lives for it: who would die for something which they knew to be false?

The fact is that human history was turned around by that event: hope won the victory over despair, light over darkness, life over death. And Jesus knew he had won when he uttered his final words on the cross:

"It is finished."

It is now!

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.