We are drawing close to what is probably the most important time in the Christian calendar, the time when believers recognise and celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus. Over the years, a lot of people have questioned the validity of this event. I found the following account regarding the Watergate crisis very interesting in relation to this issue.

History reveals that after the criminal investigation of the White House began—as it did with Dean’s April 8 meeting with the prosecutors—the end of Mr. Nixon’s presidency was only a matter of time. The cover-up was discovered—and doomed—and this is why the dates are so important. For though the cover-up technically dated back to the June 1972 break-in, the serious cover-up, the part everyone knew or should have known was criminal—really began March 21, 1973. And it ended April 8, 1973.

With the most powerful office in the world at stake, a small band of handpicked loyalists could not hold a conspiracy together for more than two weeks.

Think of what was at stake: Each of us involved—Ehrlichman, Haldeman, Mitchell, and the rest—believed passionately in President Nixon. To enter government service for him we had sacrificed very lucrative private law practices and other endeavours; we had sacrificed our family lives and privacy; we had invested our whole lives in the work, twenty-four hours a day, if necessary. Only a few months earlier the President had been re-elected in an historic landslide victory; the ugly Asian war was finally over; we were riding the crest in every way.

Think of the power at our fingertips: a mere command from one of us could mobilize generals and cabinet officers, even armies; we could hire or fire personnel and manage billions in agency budgets.

Think of the privileges, a call to the military aide’s office would produce a limousine or jet airplane; The National Gallery delivered classic paintings to adorn our office walls; red-jacketed stewards stood in waiting to serve food and drink twenty-four hours a day; private phones appeared wherever we travelled; secret service men were always in sight - as many as we wanted.

Yet even the prospect of jeopardizing the President we had worked so hard to elect, of losing the prestige, power, and the personal luxury of our offices was not enough incentive to make this group of men contain a lie. Nor, as I reflect today, was the pressure really all that great; at that point there had certainly been moral failures, criminal violations, even perjury by some. There was certain to be keen embarrassment; at the worst some might go to prison, though that possibility was by no means certain. But no one was in grave danger; no one’s life was at stake.

Yet after just a few weeks the natural human instinct for self-preservation was so overwhelming that the conspirators, one by one, deserted their leader, walked away from their cause, turned their backs on the power, prestige, and privileges.

So what does this have to do with the resurrection of Jesus Christ? Simply this: Modern criticism of the historic truth of Christianity boils down to three propositions: first, that the disciples were mistaken; or second, that the disciples knowingly perpetrated a myth, intended as a symbol; or third, the eleven disciples conceived a “Passover plot”—spirited the body of Christ out of the tomb and disposed of it neatly—and to their dying breaths maintained conspiratorial silence. . . .

. . . That is why the Watergate experience is so instructive for me. If John Dean and the rest of us were so panic stricken, not by the prospect of beatings and execution, but by political disgrace and a possible prison term, one can only speculate about the emotions of the disciples.

The Watergate cover-up reveals, I think, the true nature of humanity. None of the memoirs suggest that anyone went to the prosecutor’s office out of such noble notions as putting the Constitution above the President . . . Even political zealots . . . will save their own necks in the crunch, though it be at the expense of the one they profess to serve so zealously.

Is it really likely, then, that a deliberate cover-up, a plot to perpetuate a lie about the Resurrection, could have survived the violent persecution of the apostles, the scrutiny of early church councils, the horrendous purge of the first-century believers who were cast by thousands to the lions for refusing to renounce the Lordship of Christ. Is it not possible that at least one of the apostles would have renounced Christ before being beheaded or stoned? Is it not likely that some “smoking gun” document might have been produced exposing the “Passover plot”?

Blaise Pascal, the extraordinary mathematician, scientist, inventor, and logician of the seventeenth century, was convinced of the truth of Christ by examination of the historical record. . . . As Pascal correctly observes, man in his normal state will renounce his beliefs just as readily as Peter renounced Jesus before the Resurrection. But the same Peter discovered after the Resurrection, there is a power beyond man that causes him to forsake all. It is the power of the God who revealed Himself in the person of Jesus Christ.

Take it from one who was inside the Watergate web looking out, who saw firsthand how vulnerable a cover-up is: Nothing less than a witness as awesome as the resurrected Christ could have caused those men to maintain their dying whispers that Jesus is alive and Lord.

This weight of evidence tells me the apostles were indeed telling the truth: Jesus did rise bodily from the grave; He is who He says He is. Thus, He speaks with the absolute authority of the all-powerful God.

- Charles Coulson, Loving God

William never let anyone forget that their main purpose was to reach people with the Gospel. All other activities of the Army were focused on this. William and Catherine knew that real help and permanent change only came when the Spirit of God would touch these people’s lives. —William & Catherine Booth, Salvation Army

The cross is God’s truth to us, and therefore it is the only power which can make us truthful. When we know the cross, we are no longer afraid of the truth. We need no more oaths to confirm the truth of our utterance, for we live the perfect truth of God. There is no truth towards Jesus without truth towards man. Untruthfulness destroys fellowship, but truth cuts false fellowship to pieces and establishes genuine brotherhood. We cannot follow Christ unless we live in revealed truth before God and man. —Dietrich Bonhoeffer