In his Easter message, the Rt Revd Prof David Walker, Bishop of Manchester, reflects on the terrible impact of war and the need for hope to endure, even in the most difficult of circumstances.
The full transcript
"It was not long after my return to Manchester as bishop. I was queueing calmly at a tram stop when a couple of young boys let off a tear gas canister. Luckily, my tram arrived almost instantly and I was able to board it with minimal exposure. As it happens, the stop was not St Peter’s Square, nor Piccadilly Station, it was a minute's walk from Israeli government buildings, as I took part in a diocesan trip to West Jerusalem.
"Far worse has happened in the land that Jesus trod in these last few months, much of it echoing the violence which exploded in his own century. It can be hard to be optimistic when we see and hear of children killed, hostages tortured, and homes bombed to obliteration.
"Yet the Easter Story convinces me that, even when optimism rightly falters, hope can yet endure.
"The devastation of Good Friday is not where any of the gospel writers end their accounts. Violence does not get the last word, God does.
"When he raises Jesus to new life that first Easter Morning, he declares that love will ultimately triumph over hate and that good will defeat evil, even when human logic suggests otherwise.
"That is the hope to which I will cling, and seek to live by, even in this most troubling of years, both for Jesus’s homeland and across the globe. "To everyone of all faiths and none, in our local area and around the world, I wish you all a blessed Easter."