Agenda: WA’s church leaders open up on the true meaning of Easter and the need for hope amid chaotic times

The Most Reverend Kay Goldsworthy AO, Anglican Archbishop of Perth Happy Easter. In the West, the sunshine will be a blessing for communities in the north clearing and cleaning up after the recent cyclone. For those in farming communities looking for the right weather is a day-by-day reality. Many families will be conserving fuel and staying close to home. War and conflicts across the world mean that we come to Easter this year more aware than ever of the need for people to walk carefully alongside each other for peace. More aware than ever of the need for reconciliation, peace and friendship. Easter isn’t a single day so much as a journey, a pilgrimage of the heart that we walk alongside Jesus. It begins in the brightness of Palm Sunday, with cries of welcome and hope, as crowds gather and lay down branches in celebration. Yet even in that moment of triumph, there is a sense that the road ahead will be hard. The journey leads into the shadow of Good Friday, where joy gives way to suffering, betrayal, and the stark reality of the Cross. Here we stand with the grief and pain of the world. In our own time, that pain is sharply felt in the ongoing war and conflict in the Middle East, in lands where some of the earliest Christian communities were formed. Churches fall silent, communities are displaced, and the human cost weighs heavily on us all. The road to the Cross isn’t distant history. It is present wherever there is violence, injustice, and loss. The heart of Easter is believing that Jesus’ death on the Good Friday Cross is not the end of the story of God’s love. It’s in the dawn of Easter morning, at the empty tomb, where fear is met with astonishment and despair transformed into hope. The resurrection is not an escape from the world’s suffering, but a promise that love is stronger than death, and that even the darkest night will give way to light. To live Easter is to walk this path as pilgrims - spiritually, and sometimes physically - seeking and being signs of love, hope, and peace. It calls us to move through the world with compassion, to stand with those who suffer, and to become bearers of resurrection hope. In this journey, we discover that Christ walks with us still, leading us toward a future shaped not by fear, but by enduring love. Pilgrimage can be a metaphor for life itself – a journey marked by challenge, discovery and transformation, as we make our way through life, towards the eternal life made possible by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That is the journey Christians recall and, ultimately, celebrate at Easter – the journey of Jesus Christ to Jerusalem during his final week on earth, his death on a cross and his rising to life just three days later. Hope, peace and joy are the most precious of Easter gifts. The story of Easter is a reminder that God walks with us in every season of life – in times of sorrow and uncertainty, as well as in moments of joy and celebration. Across Perth this weekend, hundreds of churches will be filled with people proclaiming this good news of hope and renewal, with doors open to all who wish to come. In whatever way you choose to mark this Easter season, whether in quiet reflection, worship, time with family and friends – or out walking in nature – I pray that it will be an occasion of joy, peace and renewal for you and your loved ones. Happy Easter. Most Rev Timothy Costelloe SDB, Catholic Archbishop of Perth. “As I prepare these Easter reflections for the readers of The West Australian, I find myself confronted by the news that the destructive force of cyclone Narelle and the growing fuel crisis caused by war in the Middle East threaten together to “cascade into a full-blown economic emergency”. It immediately occurs to me that a full-blown economic emergency can very quickly develop into a full blown social catastrophe: more people are forced out of their homes and onto the streets as interest rates continue to rise; families are forced to make impossible choices between providing decent food and accessing increasingly expensive medical care; certain parts of our cities and towns become no-go areas as street violence escalates, home invasions are on the rise, and social cohesion seems ever more fragile. We have faced similar crises before and we hope that, as in the past, we will come through this challenging period, and things will return to something like normal. At the same time these periods of disruption, with all the suffering they bring, are a powerful reminder to us that we are not as fully in control of our lives and our destiny as we sometimes think. This realisation can often lead people to consider questions which in more stable times do not always arise: how do I support my family and friends, not just financially but psychologically and spiritually, when the world is in so much turmoil and we worry that things will only get worse? How do I make sense of the unfathomable capacity for evil and hatred which seems to exist in the hearts of so many, and which may even be lurking in the depths of my own heart? Are violence and war really the only answer? Why do people seem so unwilling to “give peace a chance”? Christians find an answer, or at least the beginnings of an answer, in the story of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. His life speaks of peace, of healing, of forgiveness and of brotherhood. His death speaks of the power of evil which seems to win the ultimate victory, but also speaks of fidelity, courage and self-sacrifice, for his death only makes sense in the light of his life and his determination to remain faithful to his mission, no matter the cost. His resurrection, a childish fable to some but an unshakeable conviction of faith for Christians, speaks of hope in the face of despair, of the power of love in the face of hatred, and of the triumph of life over death. For Christians, the seemingly unattainable gift of peace which Jesus offers on the night of his resurrection is understood as both a gift and a task. What is impossible to achieve through human effort alone becomes a real possibility, in the Christian vision, for those who unite themselves to him and, in doing so, rely on him to do for them what they cannot do for and by themselves. “Peace be with you”, Jesus says on the night of his resurrection. The Christian faith exists to bear witness, however imperfectly, to the conviction that while humanity may be capable of the deepest depravity, it also has the seeds within it of true greatness. As we grapple with the challenges of this present moment, Easter presents us with the opportunity to open ourselves to those deeper questions which we otherwise often avoid and to consider the offer that Jesus makes: “Come to me all you who labour and are overburdened and I will give you rest”. Reverend Victor Owuor, Baptist Churches Western Australia This Easter we again look out and see a world in conflict. Wars and unrest press upon us. We feel the effects. Innocent people are suffering. The words of Romans 5:12 are significant; “sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned.” Sin, evil, death – in the past and in the present – remind us that history is shaped by our moral choices. We see the emptiness and devastation that sin leaves in our lives and yearn for something different. The emphasis of Romans Chapter 8 is that there is a groaning going on - 8:22 says; “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.” There is also a longing – 8:19; “All of creation longs for salvation.” Something within us longs for redemption and renewal. We have a deep desire for peace and the healing that only God can give. Easter is beautiful and shows us that salvation comes to our world from God. We cannot earn it or achieve it ourselves; it is a gift of His love and power. Ephesians 2:8-9 reminds us; “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.” We are amazed by a God who reaches out to us and invites us to accept His gift of salvation. At Easter we see the culmination of the life of God’s gift, his Son Jesus. We see him experience the worst the world could throw at him. We see him rise to life on the other side of it. Think of a humble farmer who, after a long drought, finally sees rain fall on his dry land. He cannot make the rain come or control when it arrives. Instead, he welcomes it with thankfulness, knowing it is beyond his power. We are like that farmer. We cannot fix all the problems. Our worry and fears do not change them. And like the farmer who looks to the sky for rain, we look to God for hope and redemption. In Jesus, both have come to us. This Easter, let’s remember how great God’s grace is. In Jesus we have the sacrifice he made for our redemption. As we celebrate Jesus Christ’s resurrection, may we accept that through Him, we are given new life—a life free from condemnation and rich in hope. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). As we face the challenges in our world, let’s remember what Easter is about: God’s grace brings hope, salvation, and victory over darkness to everyone who believes. Even when life is uncertain, may we discover peace by trusting in God’s love and believing that His light leads us to new life and redemption. Uniting Church WA moderator Rev David Jackson Lent and Easter in our Christian tradition are a time to reflect on the triumph of love over hate, life over death and hope over despair. For the followers of Jesus, the death of their beloved leader led them to fear and hiding. The brutal, politically motivated mock trial, punishment and degrading execution of Jesus was thought by the perpetrators to bring an end to what they perceived was subversive ideology. As we know, the opposite happened with followers spreading their message of love worldwide after the resurrection. Events in the past months have forced us to reckon with the behaviour of a few seeking to disrupt and violently suppress peaceful gatherings. People who are motivated by hate and are prosecuting their ideologies by violent means evoking fear in the hearts of peace-loving people. On 26 January this year a man believed to hold white supremacist ideology is alleged to have thrown a bomb into a crowd of First Nations people and supporters assembled in the Perth CBD at a peaceful Invasion Day rally. The homemade device filled with screws and ball bearings thankfully failed to detonate. Aboriginal people around Australia reacted to the news of the attack expressing their hurt and anger. On 14 December last year at Bondi Beach in New South Wales a peaceful gathering of the Jewish community was violently shattered when 15 innocent people were gunned down by two people allegedly holding extremist, hateful ideology. The Australian community stood together in solidarity to condemn these attacks. One of the bystanders in the crowd at Bondi that fateful day disregarded his own life when be bravely snatched away the weapon of one of the shooters. He did not then turn the gun on the attacker to kill him. When later asked by a journalist why he, a Muslim, did what he did to save the lives of the Jewish people being mercilessly gunned down he reframed the situation saying, “I didn’t think about religion. I did what I did to save innocent human people.” When asked about the Jewish people being strangers he replied, “there are no strangers, we are all humans.” As fellow Australians that’s what we do – out of love for each other. Not religion, not ethnicity, not strangers, but simply out of love for each other as humans. That for me epitomises Easter. It has nothing to do with our ethnicity; whether we have come to this place as a migrant or were born here, whether we are First or Second peoples. We look out for one another because we care, because we love and because we seek to be a neighbour to each other. After the Bondi attack and the alleged attempted bombing on 26 January in the Perth CBD political leaders came out in support and solidarity of those targeted by the perpetrators. They said an attack on one is an attack on us all. Mother Teresa of Calcutta tells a story of a time she took a bag of rice to a family in the slums of Calcutta. The woman she gave the rice to divided the rice evenly into two. When asked why, she replied “my neighbour [who was from another religious faith] had a large family to feed as well.” Saint Teresa of Calcutta wrote: “Humility is the mother of all virtues; purity, charity and obedience. c It is in being humble that our love becomes real, devoted and ardent. If you are humble nothing will touch you, neither praise nor disgrace, because you know what you are. If you are blamed, you will not be discouraged. If they call you a saint, you will not put yourself on a pedestal.” This Easter let us reflect on the positive message this season in the church’s year brings to us: of love over hate, life over death and hope over despair.