I was appalled by John Chalmers’ Easter meditation in the April issue of Life and Work.

He writes as a secularist, reducing Jesus to the archetype of unfortunate, powerless, individuals caught up in the wrong place at the wrong time, reducing the saving work on the cross to a cruel act of injustice.

Mr Chalmers’ point of reference is the jargon and theories of an unbelieving psychoanalyst. The Easter story becomes a symbol, a model of ideological repressions, followed by ‘indestructible optimism, far removed from reality.’

It is a secular piece for a secular magazine, stripping the Christian faith of its most essential, most precious and central doctrine – that of salvation – and stripping Jesus of His divinity and sacrificial love.

Christ ‘set His face towards Jerusalem’, went deliberately to His death, in obedience to God, in fulfilment of Old Testament prophet and of His own chosen will in order to pay the price of mankind’s sin, to overcome all evil powers and to justify all who believe.

The task, fulfilled, He cries: ‘It is finished’ and He ‘gave up His spirit.’ No-one took His life from Him. He gave it of his own free will and set purpose.

Christ rose from the dead by the power of God – ‘triumphant’ o’er the grave’ decidedly NOT carrying a white flag! He is conqueror and King of Kings.

Christ’s resurrection is about the salvation of mankind, about the inauguring of the Kingdom of God and about the certain hope of eternal life for believers.

It does NOT ‘suggest a hopeful message’ – it proclaims victory over death, peace between man and God, certainty of everlasting life.

The Christian’s point of reference is the Bible.

Forget Carl Jung and listen to God.

Lesley Taylor, Braemar, Aberdeenshire