Easter Message + Appeal

The Risen Life Takes Shape Among Us Easter Season 2026

 

 

Dear Friends,

 

We come to Easter this year carrying more than usual. That is saying something.

The lands where Jesus lived, died, and rose are, once again, torn apart. The Middle East is a place of deep grief, old wounds, and the awful belief on every side that what is at stake is everything. Each side sees an enemy that must be overcome or there will be nothing left. We have heard this before. It does not end well.

 

It would be easy to keep Easter at arm's length from all of this. To treat the rising of Jesus as something that happened long ago and far away, a lovely thought, a warm feeling, something for the hymns. But the resurrection did not happen in a nice, tidy, safe little world. It happened under the boot of empire. Jesus was killed by an occupying power that kept the peace through fear and nails and wood. Crucifixion was not an overreaction. It was policy. The Pax Romana meant: do as you are told, or we will show you what peace looks like.

 

Into that world, God did something utterly strange. Not a show of force. Not a taking of sides. Life, where there should have been none. A dead man, breathing. The tomb, empty. Not because God beat Rome at its own game, but because the power of God is something Rome had no word for: a love that gives itself away and cannot be snuffed out, not even by death.

 

This is what makes Easter not just comforting but dangerous. It does not tell us everything will be grand. It tells us that the old lie, the one that says peace comes through crushing the other and safety comes through strength, is not the last word. There is a deeper word, and it is alive.

 

As we move through Easter together, I want to invite us to sit with a theme: The Risen Life Takes Shape Among Us. In the weeks ahead, we will ask what it looks like for the resurrection to be not only something we believe but something we do. In how we treat one another. In how we face a world in pain. In how we let the risen Christ get to work on us.

Easter does not lift us out of the mess. It meets us right in the thick of it, and it gives us somewhere to stand.

 

Easter Appeal: Alongside Hope, Gaza and West Bank

This Easter, we are inviting the parish to support the Gaza and West Bank Emergency Appeal from Alongside Hope, one of our parish partners and the Anglican Church of Canada's agency for relief and development. The appeal serves the Anglican Diocese of Jerusalem: our own sisters and brothers, living and ministering in the very lands where Jesus lived, died, and rose. As war engulfs the wider Middle East, Anglican hospitals there continue to heal. Anglican schools continue to teach. Anglican communities continue to hold the line for peace. Not because the violence has stopped, but because the resurrection says that life does not wait for permission.

 

Please donate through St. Laurence so we can track our collective effort and share the difference we make together. Mark your envelope or e-transfer (office@saintlaurence.ca) "Alongside Hope, Gaza."

 

You can READ MORE about the appeal and the work of the Diocese of Jerusalem on our website. 

 

A joyful and blessed Easter to you all.

Every Blessing, Philip