Bishop Rachel’s Easter sermon 2026

Easter Sunday 2026 Gloucester Cathedral

Readings: Acts 10:34-43 and Matthew 28:1-10

What a mess!

Those were the words with which I began my sermon here on Thursday morning when all the clergy and licensed lay ministers gathered together.

The conflict across what we call the Middle East, and its far-reaching impact across the world, is such a mess. And there is mess and devastation and injustice in so many places of conflict and suffering across our world. And as leaders continually flex their muscles of might, I find myself repeatedly saying ‘What a terrible mess’.

And over the past weeks, I have frequently heard people use the word ‘terrifying’: How terrifying that we live in a world in which leaders unleash their power to destroy and gain and diminish. How terrifying that people are oppressed and there is such an imbalance of power and unequal human dignity – (and in that I particularly think today of Israel-Palestine where the events of that first Easter unfolded). How terrifying that we live in a world in which leaders with power have seemingly exchanged our rules-based way of operating for a narrative of ‘might is right.’

What a terrible and terrifying mess.

But perhaps it was not so different just over 2000 years ago, as we recall the events in Jerusalem of that very first Holy Week.

In the narrative leading up to Christ’s crucifixion that first Good Friday, we encountered the power of the religious leaders and that of the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate – keen to operate from a place of self-interest, and unable to see the big picture and reflect on the brokenness of their own hearts and souls.

And soon the outworking of God’s promises through Jesus Christ seemed to disintegrate into a terrible and terrifying mess.

Remember Christmas and the promises of peace, and Mary’s words about God lifting up the lowly and throwing down the mighty? Remember Christ’s ministry of powerful miracles, and his teaching about a different way of being – proclaiming the power of the Kingdom of God? And despite some of the opposition, everything had been looking so hopeful when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey – admittedly not on a horse as would have been expected with a leader of power – but there had been cheers and the waving of palms. There had been joyous expectation that Jesus Christ would exercise his God-given might and power, and right the wrongs of injustice and bring in a new regime. Yet so quickly after Jesus’s celebration of Passover with his friends, came the terrible mess of betrayal, arrest, and that unjust wielding of power by political and religious leaders as the nightmare unfolded. Soon Jesus is strung up on a cross to die and we hear his voice crying out ‘My God, my God, why have you abandoned me’, and it is terrifying. Even before he breathes his last, most of Jesus Christ’s followers have run away in fear or denied even knowing him, as the power of God seems to have been defeated by the power of broken humanity.

The followers of Jesus Christ must have seen it all as a terrible mess, and I cannot begin to comprehend their sense of fear, desolation, and powerlessness. And who knows what was in the hearts and minds of those women as on the third day they went early in the morning to the place of Christ’s burial.

But suddenly into that place of powerlessness comes the power of Almighty God – An earthquake and a rolling back of the stone from the tomb, and an angel appearing. A new and different terror.

If you were here on Christmas morning you will have heard me speak about angels, and now I do so again, because those Christmas angels are back once more. And just as when the Angel Gabriel appeared to Mary who was to be the mother of Jesus, and just as the angels appeared to the shepherds on the night Jesus was born, once again here are angels saying, ‘Do not be afraid’.

In a place of mess, powerlessness and terror, the women’s fear gives way to joy. But before they even reach the other disciples to tell them that Jesus is alive, the women meet him and hear his voice as he greets them and echoes the words of the angels: ‘Do not be afraid’.

That Christmas baby, that Good Friday victim, and that risen man, is none other than God.

That earthly misuse of power and ‘might is right’, has not had the final word – and amazingly neither even has the power of death. And we are told that the women fall at the feet of Jesus Christ as they worship him.

And what of us on Easter Day 2026?

Last week I was struck by the incongruity of two different scenes of power on the same day, and both on American soil. On the one hand, a President openly speaking of his power and might and his intention to bring Iran back to the Stone Ages where, he said, they belong. And then on the same day those scenes and commentary from Florida as we saw the power of human skill and the power of a rocket as we watched the launch of Artemis II.

In our world where we are both terrified by the uncertainty created by the actions of powerful leaders, as well as longing for mystery beyond ourselves (even more mysterious than the other side of the moon) – in all of that, I do wonder why we resist opening our eyes and ears and hearts and minds ever more deeply to the power and mystery of God revealed in Jesus Christ. A power far greater than a space rocket, and far more certain than the ever-changing words of leaders with earthly power.

Why do we not dare to attend to the mystery of the angels and evermore open ourselves to the mystical and life-giving power of God’s overwhelming love and forgiveness revealed in Jesus Christ?

Today, in a world in which we see the mess of broken relationship, close at hand and far away, we are invited to hold fast to the hope that one day all will be made new, and death and evil will never have the final word. In our brokenness and sin, as well as in our goodness and beauty, our God of love offers us mercy and forgiveness and relationship restored – And one day, there will be no more pain, no more tears, no more dying – and the Kingdom of God will be powerfully brought to completion through the power of God’s Holy Spirit.

Yet, as I said here on Thursday, I do not want to sound trite – I don’t know what you are carrying in your own story at present – and I am only too aware that transformation and restoration can seem so distant as we watch the misuse of power and the suffering of people’s lives and that of our earth. So often life’s mess seems only to increase. Yet we are called as followers of Jesus Christ to take up our power to join in with God’s work of transformation even as we lament and rage at evil and brokenness, and as we continue to pray for God’s ‘kingdom to come on earth as in heaven’, knowing that nothing and no one can undo the power of the resurrection.

Over the past three years I have visited Jerusalem several times – indeed it has been a painful privilege to be in that land where Jesus walked, lived, died and was raised from the dead. I make no apology for all that I have said and written over the years – and I will go on using my voice to name and challenge the mess, including the occupation of Palestine, the violence, and the misuse of power to strangle life and flourishing, such that hope seems absent.

But on each of those visits I have ended my time by going into the Old City of Jerusalem and into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre – to pray at the site traditionally identified as the place of Christ’s burial and resurrection.

Each time, I have lit candles and proclaimed that the darkness will never have the final word. I have sought to recommit myself to joining in with God’s work of transformation and to open my ears and heart to the mystical ‘otherness’ of the angels, saying ‘do not be afraid’.

And if it’s not too contrived, perhaps I might dare to redeem the words of a President by expressing my longing for all people to be brought back to a Stone Age – to a time when a stone was rolled away from a tomb, proclaiming the power and mystery of God’s love, hope, and life beyond our imagining, and more powerful than even death itself.

On this Easter day, amidst the mess and terror of our world, may we hear the angels saying ‘do not be afraid’, and let us once more return to the song of the Christmas angels singing ‘Glory to God in the highest and peace to God’s people on earth’, as in this Eucharist we  stretch out our hands to receive Christ’s love and forgiveness in bread and wine, and once more confidently proclaim that God’s ‘is the kingdom, the power and the glory’.

Alleluia Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, Alleluia!

The Rt Revd Rachel Treweek, Bishop of Gloucester