A message of hope for a broken world

Saturday, 30 March 2024

Peter Carrell is the Anglican Bishop of Christchurch. Michael Gielen is the Catholic Bishop of Christchurch.

OPINION: As we pause to celebrate the Easter weekend, it is timely to stop and consider what relevance an historical event 2000 years ago has for us today.

We find ourselves in a world wrought with division. Sometimes we see that happening afar, in places like Ukraine, Israel, Palestine and Sudan. But we also see that closer to home, with the recent five-year anniversary of the terrorism that descended on our city and the seemingly senseless deaths in Gisborne last weekend.

That division also manifests itself in our politics, our worldviews, our ideologies. It infects our families, our workplaces, even our places of worship.

Earlier generations, whether they were people of faith or not, instinctively were drawn to others, asking “who is my neighbour?” or “who is my brother or sister?” Sadly, we are now often programmed to first ask “who is my enemy?”

Yesterday, on what we call Good Friday, we commemorated a pivotal event in Western civilisation – the show trial of a man adored just days earlier, the ridicule, and ultimate death of Jesus Christ.

Jerusalem 2000 years ago may have more in common with modern-day New Zealand than we think. In today’s language, Jesus was “cancelled” for saying what was unpopular.

All these years later, we see the juxtaposition of the three days of this Easter weekend: The darkness of death versus the light of the risen Jesus; the agony of Friday against the ecstasy of Sunday; the despair of the cross contrasted with, a few days later, the joy of an empty tomb. It was the fulfilment of countless prophecies.

On that day, amidst that darkness and agony and despair, Jesus was the sign of great hope.

In his moment of humiliation and suffering, Jesus tells the thief being crucified next to him that, despite his crimes, he will “be with me in paradise”, offering him an invite to heaven. And, perhaps even more dramatically, he pleads forgiveness for those responsible for his death.

That is the message of unity and love our world needs. That is the message of hope each of us requires in our lives. That is the message of forgiveness that heals division, builds community and delivers hope for a world that feels broken.

Actually, our world more than just feels broken.

It can feel difficult – or even impossible – for some people to find hope in their lives today. But this Easter weekend, the death and the resurrection of Jesus delivers a message of hope. It delivers a message of unity, in a moment that seems to epitomise division.

Vaclav Havel, the last president of Czechoslovakia, lays down this challenge on hope, which he says “is definitely not the same thing as optimism”.

“It is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out,” Havel said.

Consider Havel’s background as a dissident, an opponent of communism and a political prisoner. Consider how many times he could have lost hope, but he instead persevered and eventually led his country both before and after its first free elections in decades.

For Christians, as Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby put it: “Hope is the quiet certainty that, in Christ, all things will one day be made right, even if we don’t know how yet.”

Whether you profess a faith or not, we pray that you can find hope in your lives, that you can pursue forgiveness and that you can heal any divisions you are experiencing.

May the example of Jesus offer a roadmap for that journey.