'Love will triumph over hate' - An Easter message from the Bishop of Manchester
31.03.2024 - 07:17
/ manchestereveningnews.co.uk
As war continues to rage in Gaza, the Bishop of Manchester has used his Easter message to call for peace and told how he 'clings to the hope... that love will ultimately triumph over hate'. The Rt Rev David Walker admits he finds it 'hard to be optimistic' in the face of 'children being killed, hostages tortured, and homes bombed to obliteration'.
But he tells how he finds solace in the Easter story and has faith that 'hope can yet endure'.
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"It was not long after my return to Manchester as bishop," he says. "I was queueing calmly at a tram stop when a couple of young boys let off a tear gas canister.
"Luckily, my tram arrived almost instantly and I was able to board it with minimal exposure. As it happens, the stop was not St Peter's Square, nor Piccadilly Station, it was a minute's walk from Israeli government buildings, as I took part in a diocesan trip to West Jerusalem.
"Far worse has happened in the land that Jesus trod in these last few months, much of it echoing the violence which exploded in his own century. It can be hard to be optimistic when we see and hear of children killed, hostages tortured, and homes bombed to obliteration.
"Yet the Easter Story convinces me that, even when optimism rightly falters, hope can yet endure. The devastation of Good Friday is not where any of the gospel writers end their accounts. Violence does not get the last word, God does.
"When he raises Jesus to new life that first Easter Morning, he declares that love will ultimately triumph over hate and that good will defeat evil, even when human logic suggests otherwise. That is the hope to which I will cling, and seek to live by,