In his Easter sermon, preached at the Cathedral of St George the Martyr in Jerusalem, Archbishop Suheil Dawani reflects on a world that “often looks more like Good Friday than Easter Day,” and says that “Easter shows us that this world of loss, injustice and violence is not the last thing.”

Alleluia, Christ is Risen
– The Lord has Risen Indeed! Alleluia!

This is the day that the Lord has made, we will rejoice and be glad in it, for Christ is Risen. He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

The reality and the joyous affirmation of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead is at the very heart of the message for this day, and indeed of everyday. The message from the early Christians and for us today is:

I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified.
He is not here, for He is Risen.

From the beginning Easter has been confrontational. First Mary Magdalene coming to the tomb of her Lord is amazed to see that the stone at the entrance has been rolled away. So she runs to tell two of the disciples, and they run to the tomb and this time they see that it is empty; that the body of Jesus is no longer there. And then we see Mary again outside, talking to a man she thinks is a gardener and then she recognizes that she is seeing the risen Lord: back from the dead.

For all the difference in their reports of the first Easter morning, the four Gospel accounts agree on this – that Jesus’ followers visiting his tomb heard news of earth-shattering proportions.

Do not be afraid.
He is not here, he is risen as he said,
he has gone before you to Galilee.
Go back to your homes and he will meet you there.

Easter says something immense – that the source of all life, the power behind the universe is capable not just of creation, but of new creation. Those early disciples experience something vast and nearly incomprehensible that the God who brought the universe out of nothing into existence, brought Jesus out of the nothingness of death into eternal life. Of course it’s almost impossible to imagine.

However Easter shows us a world in which God has the last Word; Easter shows us a world where death is not the end, where God always [has] more life to give to everyone last one of us. Easter shows us that this world of loss, injustice and violence is not the last thing.

At the present time many people on this earth are struggling with their beliefs. For one thing the world often looks more like Good Friday than Easter Day.

I know it does for the people of Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Palestine, Africa and for many now in Europe. Every front page brings ample reason to grieve. Pain and loss continue to make their way through our lives.

When we look at our world today we have to close our eyes and ears not to see and hear how suffering and violence continue to disfigure so many people, there are people in our city and our region today who can feel their wounds.

What does the resurrection of Jesus say to all this today? The challenge of Easter today is to understand the history of human suffering in the light of Jesus’ resurrection. As Christians we have to make our protest against death in the midst of life.

We see death all around us in the midst of life. This point was made movingly by the German theologian Jurgen Moltmann in an Easter sermon when he said: 

"Death is an evil power now in life’s very midst. Is it the economic death of the person we allow to starve, the political death of the people who are oppressed, the social death of the handicapped, the death that strikes through bombs and torture."

To accept this litany of death as inevitable is to empty the resurrection of its power today. Our resurrection faith faces that brutality and violence. It educates us to see as God sees, it equips us with enormous courage to reject the power of evil and darkness. The truth that God raised Jesus from the dead gives hope and help to all those who want that miracle repeated in the midst of life.

We can catch something of the reality of Resurrection when we experience new life in the midst of hopelessness, we see it in the work of love and mercy in our diocesan hospitals; we see it in our children’s rehabilitation centres; we see it in our educational institutions, where we teach to love and respect the different other.

We can see it in the beloved disciple who sees in the dark what no else sees. For all this we rejoice.

It is Easter in our midst, right in this city of Jerusalem the city of the resurrection, the city of hope.

The open tomb and the Risen Christ wipes away our fears with a newness that lightens our burden and opens for us as it did for the Disciples, a new vista of hope for justice, equity and peace, first within our hearts and into the communities in which we live and into the large shattered world to make it whole and wholesome.

God’s last word has the power of love that proved stronger than hate, the power of hope that is stronger than despair: the power of forgiveness.

This Easter Morning says that Christ is among us. He is feeding us with the bread and wine of his risen life. He will be always in our hearts and so in our work as a church as we are invited by Christ to risk loving each other.

Our strength, dear friends, is now our ability to bring Good News to others that the Risen Lord is the God of love, hope, mercy and justice.

Alleluia Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen Indeed. Alleluia

• Click here to read the Easter message from the Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem