Easter Message from the FCG Moderator

To the Free Churches Community,

Resurrection greetings to you in the name of God — Creator, Christ, and Comforter — Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

“Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, I am sending you” (John 20:21 NIV).

Easter dawns as God’s decisive act of new creation. Before fear can organise itself, before grief can settle into permanence, before the powers of death can declare victory, God calls life out of the tomb and opens a future that had been sealed shut.

Mary Magdalene meets the risen Christ in a garden — a deliberate echo of the first garden, the place where human vocation began. Resurrection is the renewal of creation itself, and not simply the reversal of death. The risen Christ stands as the gardener of a remade world, cultivating life where loss seemed to have the final word.

The marks of crucifixion remain visible, as signs of costly love that endures rather than of defeat. In God, wounded bodies are honoured, remembered, and transformed into testimony. What human cruelty attempted to silence becomes a proclamation.

“Peace be with you”. When the risen Christ speaks peace, it is of a peace rooted in history — a peace that restores relationship, heals memory, and gathers scattered people into community. It steadies hearts, reorders priorities, and makes courage possible again.

Then Christ breathes. The breath of God that animated the first human being moves once more through fragile lives. This is creative, sustaining, empowering breath — the Spirit who kindles imagination, strengthens resolve, and calls communities into being. Resurrection is therefore the birth of a Spirit-filled people entrusted with God’s future.

“As the Father has sent me, I am sending you”. Easter immediately becomes mission. Those who encounter the risen Christ are drawn into the work of repair — mending what has been torn, restoring what has been diminished, building communities shaped by justice, mercy, and faithful love. Resurrection faith wholeheartedly rejects passivity. It moves outward, seeking the flourishing of all.

In our world, where many experience uncertainty, displacement, and profound strain, Easter proclaims that life can still emerge in unexpected places. Seeds take root underground long before they break the surface. Communities rediscover strength even after seasons of exhaustion. Hope often begins quietly, gathering momentum before it becomes visible.

As Free Churches, shaped by traditions of conscience, courage, and commitment to the common good, we are called to embody this resurrection life in public as well as personal ways. Our witness matters. Our service matters. Our refusal to surrender compassion matters. Wherever we stand alongside those whose dignity is threatened, wherever we work for reconciliation, wherever we nurture belonging, signs of resurrection appear.

Friends, Easter assures us that God’s future is already unfolding among us. The risen Christ meets people on ordinary roads, in familiar places, within communities that are still learning how to hope again. Resurrection is not distant from daily life, it is woven into it, energising faithful action and sustaining courageous love.

So we live as resurrection people who recognise possibility where others see closure, who cultivate peace amid turbulence, who trust that God continues to call life forth from every place that feels unfruitful.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Christ is risen, and with Christ the world is invited into renewal.

Christ is risen, and with Christ communities can be rebuilt.

Christ is risen, and with Christ hope becomes a living force.

May the joy of Easter strengthen us.

May the breath of the Spirit renew us.

May the peace of the risen Christ flow through us into the life of the world.

And may we recognise, even now, the signs of God’s new Creation unfolding around us.

With every blessing this Easter,

Revd Dr Tessa Henry-Robinson

Moderator, Free Churches Group