As global conflicts intensify, Easter offers a counterpoint – a call to reject violence and embrace light, mercy and transformation.

Iran and the war, (not forgetting Lebanon Ukraine, Palestine and Sudan) are the unwelcome global backdrops to this year’s celebration of Easter. The suffering unleashed and gloated over by the Israeli Prime minister, the US President and his ‘Christian’ Minister for War is immense. What do they know about Iran?

The name is derived from ‘Aryan’ meaning noble. Its ancient religion, Zoroastrianism, reframed our understating of linear time. Every age was considered a continuation of battle between good and evil in which humans must choose which side they are on. Ancient Iranians/Aryans/Nobles considered themselves noble warriors on the side of light. We might strongly disagree, but today, Iran’s expression of Shia Islam, shaped by this philosophy, considers America and Israel the domains of darkness and themselves the warriors of light. These views are clearly reciprocated and reinforced, the longer violence continues.

Locking each other into these views provides no space for transformation and makes more violence inevitable. Violence does not dispel darkness, it deepens it.

As Easter approaches, most of the globe’s citizens have very good reason for fear that darkness, not light, is the dominant force in current human history. But this is not the message of Easter. Easter is a celebration of the victory of light and life over darkness and death. How have we arrived at this dark place in human history and wherein does hope lie?

Without Easter there is no Christian faith, so where do we begin?

The Bible begins in Genesis with a picture of nothingness/ darkness into which God speaks. “Let there be light and there was light”. These few words frame our understanding of the energy we call God – the source of light and life. A few verses on we learn that humans are made in this image, all of us (male and female) are Adam, from the earth, with capacity as light bearers.

The New Testament, through the voice of John, begins in similar fashion: “in him was life and the life was the light of the world and the darkness did not/has not/continues not to overcome it”. This energy, this life, this light becomes incarnate in human form. In the birth of Jesus, we see what is always true, God, who is light, embraces humanity. In turn, we are to embrace light (God) and embrace both one another and the natural order which nurtures us all.

John goes on to recognise that people “prefer darkness rather than light”. In other words, we find it more attractive to hold power than to serve, more profitable to exploit than sustain, more self-serving to condemn than to build up. As Ecclesiastes, the most cynical of all biblical books says: it is all vanity and a striving after wind!

The Easter message is that we strive after the wrong things. We should desire to be rich, not in gold coffers, but in that which enables the human spirit to fly – love of family, enjoyment of beauty, fulfilment in service, restoring what is broken, giving hospitable space for that which is not self. In striving for all the wrong things, why are we so surprised that various forms of mental illness and feelings of isolation (darkness) are the hallmarks of life in a consumer driven world that is full of things, but void of meaningful life.

On the night of his betrayal Jesus said to his disciples: put away your swords. Good Friday and the cross open the heart and mind to the core of Jesus teaching: what you hold on to you lose, what you give away you keep.

On the cross, through his suffering and death he who is light banishes the darkness. This is such a counter intuitive truth in a world which has come to believe it is only the strong and powerful who win. No, the strong and powerful do not win, they accumulate sand that slips between the fingers necessitating the constant need for more of it. In the process, what endures has been passed by, leaving the holder of the sand stranded.

The Christian faith was born on Easter morning. First Mary, then disciples and other followers were overwhelmed by the sense of presence of that light which should have been extinguished but was not. Paul was later to say “I am convinced that no power, no experience, no event, can separate us from that light which has shone in the person of Jesus”.

This acclamation is made, not denying, but accepting the fact that we prefer darkness rather than light. In other words, the light announced at the dawn of creation will not be denied. Like the hound of heaven, light and goodness will continue to chase us down the meandering paths of life, not even death itself will get in the way, it is not an ending but a transformation.

This is the great hope and joy of Easter. It’s belief has been the bedrock of my 60 years of ministry; that no matter the circumstances of life, the embodied light manifest in Jesus can and will transform the reluctance and waywardness of this mortal human being.

The Easter message to Trump, Netanyahu, Hegseth, and Iranian leadership is: put your sword back in its sheath. Embrace kindness and mercy and Easter will embrace you.