Easter Message 2025

Christ Is Risen, and Life Is Liberated!
Easter Message 2025

“We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ... who rose again on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.” (Nicene Creed)

Christians, rise up in joy! The Lord has risen, and all creation is freed for a new vitality.

The glory of the Lord moves our lives and our world into sharp relief and hope. Christ’s resurrection not only vindicates Jesus’ life and suffering.  It also confirms his gospel of justice and peace, lifts our spirits, and ignites in us the sure hope that—despite the mountainous challenges and uncertainties we all face—God is at work to renew the world and to ensure that life will triumph over death, good over evil and light over darkness.

 “We have seen the Lord!” The witness of the women and of his other closest disciples to Jesus’ presence after his ignominious death grounds our faith in his continued redemptive presence among us—healing the world, lifting the downhearted, and embracing all creation in joy.

So now we know: God is for us, always creating and sustaining life. God is with us, always healing and redeeming us and all creation. And God is in us, always present and beckoning us to personal and social transformation and into God’s New Creation.

As Athanasius, that champion of the Nicene Creed (the 1700th anniversary of which we celebrate this year) saw, Christ’s Resurrection involved “a marvelous and mighty paradox… for the death which they thought to inflict on Him as dishonour and disgrace has become the glorious monument to death’s defeat” (On the Incarnation, 24.4). 

In that “marvelous and mighty paradox” is the foundational mystery of our redemption. Christ’s superabundant love and self-giving redeems our human condition and offers us a new story to live and to tell: As Christ-followers, we are risen with him to new life and new possibilities through self-giving love. Nothing matters more to us and to the world.

We know that this world is not at peace. Conflicts and wars among nations, tensions between peoples, and violence against the powerless are growing. The world is not reconciled—and it is questionable whether it is even trying to be. Yet, as we embrace faith in the Resurrected Lord, we perceive that it is precisely in those moments when hope seems lost, when disunity appears victorious, when injustice seems to reign, and when life appears surrendered to death— that we are met by the mystery of Christ. This marvelous and mighty paradox makes us see for ourselves and witness for the world a life-giving hope and love precisely when they appear to be lost.

In this Special Ecumenical Year, we mark anniversaries important to the Church—like that of the Council of Nicaea (325) and the centenary of the Stockholm Conference (1925)—and coincidentally all Christians will celebrate Easter on the same day.  Could it not always be so, with a common feast of Easter, the heart of our shared faith? It would be a profound sign of reconciliation and a tangible expression of the unity for which Christ prayed. It would also spur more common witness: speaking truth to power and engaging in joint action for justice, peace, and reconciliation, fired by the promise, “if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Romans 6:5).

In a world where despair often feels stronger than hope, and fragmentation is more visible than fellowship, the Church is not called to retreat—but to witness boldly, joyfully, in one accord. To proclaim the resurrection is to resist the powers of death. To believe in the Risen Christ is to offer a living hope—a hope that is not deferred, but present, active, and at work in our lives, our deeds, and our world.  A hope that enters the brokenness of the world with hands ready to heal and hearts ready to forgive.

So let us go forth as witnesses to the resurrection—not only in word, but in life. Let us sow signs of spring even in winter. Let us walk with the Risen Christ and with one another, embracing our time and working toward the day when all shall truly be one in the Lord. For Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! 

Yours in the Risen Lord,

Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay     Bishop Dr Heinrich Bedford-Strohm
General Secretary              Moderator, WCC Central Committee
World Council of Churches