Bishop Alan Williams broadcast an Easter message on BBC Essex on Easter Sunday.
In Holy Week, said the Bishop, the ‘actors’ in the drama make choices and decisions. “We know of Caiaphas, Herod and Pilate because they chose to condemn Jesus. The mob, representing us, was given a choice between Jesus and Barabbas. And the disciples made their own sad choices and decisions – Judas betrayed Jesus, Peter denied him and the rest ran away.”
In our own fast-moving lives, he said, “we have to make choices and decisions in great difficulties – sometimes it is a choice between despair and hope”.
Referring to the tragic events in Belgium and the suffering experienced by those caught up in the terrorism there, he said Christians try to believe that somehow there can be hope in the midst of despair. “With Jesus Christ, we believe that life triumphs eventually over death and over suffering. When we are bewildered and searching, we find meaning in the Easter story.”
He concluded with a prayer for all those suffering as a result of terrorism, particularly those whose lives had been wrecked, directly or indirectly, in the Belgium attacks.