Two stories to make the news in recent days may shed a little light on the mystery of the Resurrection.

Firstly there was the sculptor convicted of stealing human bones and taking them home to help him shape his sculptures. The fact that they were 'borrowed' from the anatomy department of the Royal College of Surgeons rather than being dug up from a cemetery as in the bad old days of 'body-snatching' did not help him when it came to the verdict of 'guilty'. The thing which most put people off was that he had taken the items home in a rucksack on the London Underground so that one could have been rattling home innocently to Richmond reading the 'Evening Standard' and sitting next to ... something unexpected. Everybody admitted that artists needed models and Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo would not have got very far without them but at least they didn't walk round Milan or Rome with them.

The idea of the 'bones being stolen' is still fashionable among those who cannot accept the Resurrection. As Matthew's Gospel tells us the story was concocted at the time as a face-saver and still remains current.

The other story involved a publicity drive for a marketing agency called Grey Direct. In order to convince the public that the agency was totally honest and had nothing to hide the whole staff were photographed for an advertisement ... in the nude. There they were all 36 of them carefully arranged to avoid the viewer having any more shock than was absolutely necessary. Apparently the experience bonded the agency together as a team. Well it would wouldn't it? Let us hope it does not spread to the Diocesan Year Book as a way of showing Portsmouth's priestly integrity.

Now Jesus left his grave-clothes behind and it is not for us to enquire from which celestial tailor he acquired the items in which he appeared in his risen body. But we are reminded that the Resurrection is not about objects be they bones or clothes but about truth pure naked unadorned truth the truth of love, love which "many waters cannot quench". The Resurrection is a ray of the purest invisible light.