Waitrose is known as a purveyor of ‘posh nosh’, the supermarket for the middle classes. And it’s interesting to notice where it has its stores: in Pontprennau (just!), Cowbridge, Monmouth and Abergavenny but not in Ely, Grangetown or Trowbridge (so why not Llandaff or Pontcanna? Perhaps they couldn’t find a suitable site).

A few years ago Waitrose was ridiculed in several newspapers for the items it had included in its “Essentials” range – and you can see why. For the word “essentials” makes most of us think of things such as loaves of bread, milk, hard cheese, frozen peas, jars of jam, potatoes, eggs or bacon – and I expect that these items were indeed included in the supermarket’s range. But alongside them were foodstuffs such as artichoke hearts, coconut milk, halloumi cheese, gnocchi, avocados, balsamic vinegar, stuffed green olives and coarse Ardennes paté: not, please note, to be confused with terrine with chicken which is also on the list – as dog food! Now I’ll be honest with you: I like good food and some of those items tempt me (except avocados, which I can’t stand). But are they “essentials”? Surely not!

I wonder what we think are the “essential” beliefs of the Christian faith? You might say that they are contained in the historic creeds: the most familiar of these, and the shortest, is the “Apostles’ Creed” which begins “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, his only Son Our Lord” – the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds go into more detail. However, while these do outline orthodox Christian beliefs, they can’t be found in the Bible as they were written several centuries later than the New Testament (and written, I must add, to try and correct particular errors and issues which concerned the church leaders of their times). Perhaps because it was closer to the time in which Jesus had lived, or perhaps because the theologians hadn’t yet had much time to work things out, the creeds in the Bible are much simpler. In Philippians we have what may well be a very early hymn about Jesus who “had the nature of God but he did not think that by force he should try to remain equal with God”, who “appeared in human likeness, was humble and walked the path of obedience all the way to his death on the cross”, who was raised up by God and “given the name that is greater than any other name” and so on. And in Romans we have the faith boiled down to just two Greek words which translate as “Jesus is Lord!” – a subversive and dangerous thing to say in Roman society which regarded its Emperor as a god.

You’ll know that both the Philippian and Roman letters were written by Paul; and he gives us another statement of faith in 1 Corinthians 15. This, again, is one that’s been stripped down to its barest bones, but it tells us what Paul regarded as the most important facet of his faith: Jesus’ Resurrection. For Paul doesn’t even mention Jesus’ birth (Goodbye, Christmas!) although he does mention his death and burial (well, everyone dies, don’t they?). But he then goes into quite a lot of detail about Jesus’ resurrection appearances: first to Peter, then to all twelve disciples, then to more than five hundred followers, then to James and all the apostles (presumably a different group to the Twelve disciples), and finally (by a bit of jiggery-pokery) to Paul himself. And, while the apostle is clearly trying to shore up his own credentials by saying that he’d seen Jesus, albeit only in a vision, he’s also saying, “I believe in the Resurrection: nothing else is as important at that”.

I can’t think of any church today which would dare to have such a simple statement of faith. Many indeed ask their members to “sign up” to a long list of beliefs. So, for instance, a church in Southampton has a statement which runs to twelve paragraphs, starting with their belief in “one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit as revealed in Scripture and in the sovereignty and grace of God in creation, providence, revelation, redemption and final judgement” and ending with “the personal, visible return of the Lord Jesus Christ in power and glory, in final judgement, the eternal punishment of the unsaved and the eternal fellowship of believers with Christ in a new heaven and a new earth” – they also declare what they believe about baptism, marriage, and the dedication of children.

You may think that’s wordy; but what about our Anglican friends? They have the “Thirty-Nine Articles” which begin with the Trinity: “There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts, or passions; of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness; the Maker, and Preserver of all things both visible and invisible. And in unity of this Godhead there be three Persons, of one substance, power, and eternity; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost”; and end with Oath-swearing (obviously an important issue in the 1600s, when the Articles were written): “As we confess that vain and rash Swearing is forbidden Christian men by our Lord Jesus Christ, and James his Apostle, so we judge, that Christian Religion doth not prohibit, but that a man may swear when the Magistrate requireth, in a cause of faith and charity, so it be done according to the Prophet’s teaching in justice, judgment, and truth”. The whole thing runs to nearly 4.500 archaic words: I bet that few Anglicans have read it through, and that fewer still have much idea of what it means!

Admittedly these formularies (isn’t that a good word?) are far more than simple statements about Jesus; apart from anything else, they include such topics as church government, Christian behaviour, the way in which churches relate to the secular state, the procedures for carrying our baptism and Communion and so on. That’s fair enough, but one can’t escape feeling that they have become excessively technical and complicated; and that they may be more concerned with building barriers to stop difficult ideas creeping in than with helping believers to think through their faith. So perhaps we need to get back to Paul’s essentials: the story of Jesus and, in particular, the Resurrection.

Now I think that Paul’s emphasis is correct: the Resurrection is the event which set the seal on everything that Jesus did and said, the proof that he really was the Son of God and not just another prophet. However it’s also the hardest part of the story to believe – after all, people who die, publicly and in such a gory way, simply don’t come back to life! It’s no surprise that people who have wanted to discredit our faith have so often concentrated on trying to disprove Christ’s Resurrection, saying that Jesus never really died but merely swooned, or that there was a secret body-swap in the tomb, or that the disciples were blinded by their tears or had hallucinations, or that what happened at Easter was a “spiritual” event rather than a literal one. Paul knows that the Resurrection is the key fact of Christianity: if Christ has not risen, he says, then the entire structure of our belief comes crashing down.

But this does, I think, present us with a problem which may not have existed in Paul’s day but certainly does in ours. For I guess that, in most churches, there are people who say, “I consider myself to be a Christian, I believe in God, I admire Jesus and want to follow his way. But I’m a modern person with a rational scientific mind and I find belief in the Resurrection a step too far, it’s simply too far-fetched for me to believe”. These people aren’t cynics or hypocrites, quite the opposite in fact: they are honest people who genuinely want faith and are struggling to find it. If we say the Resurrection is so fundamental to Christian belief, must we then say that these good folk aren’t ‘proper’ Christians at all?

Well, that would be the logical conclusion, wouldn’t it? But it would also be unfair. One must, of course, hope and pray that these people will come to realise that God isn’t bound by the usual “laws of nature”, and that the reason the Resurrection is so powerful is actually because it flies in the face of what is “normal” and “expected” and “rational”. We dare not trammel God by our own ideas of what he can and cannot do. Alongside this, I’m sure that God understands and loves people who honestly seek him but find it hard to believe – dare I say that he may even have more concern for them than for the folk to whom faith comes easily? We say that God is a God of justice and love; I just can’t see him rejecting folk who genuinely do want to believe but, for whatever reason, find it hard.

So we come back to the essential facts of our faith, facts that one hopes Christians from all traditions can affirm together. You and I know that Christ’s Church is sadly fractured and divided in many ways – as was the congregation at Corinth to which Paul was writing. The issues which separate Christians have changed down the centuries and today include matters such as the ways we should worship (and the music!), who can legitimately preside at Communion, (and what Communion means). the necessity (or not) of bishops, our understandings of God’s mission in the world, our views on both sexuality and marriage and on war and peace, our beliefs about baptism, and many more. I’m not saying that these things aren’t important – they are; but at the end of the day they are secondary to the belief that lies at the centre of our faith: that Jesus is the Son of God, that he died and rose as the Saviour of the world.