Good Friday, Resurrection Sunday and the Search for Peace in a Troubled World

Armstrong Williams
Thu, 02 Apr 2026 16:48:34 -0700
Opinion

There are moments in history when the noise of the world grows so loud that it drowns out the quiet truths we most need to hear. War dominates headlines. Moral confusion clouds judgment. Division becomes the language of public life. And in such moments, Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday arrive not as distant religious observances but as urgent invitations to pause, to reflect and to rediscover what it means to be whole.

Good Friday is, at its core, a confrontation with suffering.

It is not comfortable. It is not triumphant. It does not offer easy answers. It asks us instead to sit with the reality of sacrifice, injustice and human frailty. It reminds us that even in the presence of truth, the world can choose violence. Even in the presence of light, darkness can seem to prevail.
Updated: Fri Apr 03, 2026

There are moments in history when the noise of the world grows so loud that it drowns out the quiet truths we most need to hear. War dominates headlines. Moral confusion clouds judgment. Division becomes the language of public life. And in such moments, Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday arrive not as distant religious observances but as urgent invitations to pause, to reflect and to rediscover what it means to be whole.

Good Friday is, at its core, a confrontation with suffering.

It is not comfortable. It is not triumphant. It does not offer easy answers. It asks us instead to sit with the reality of sacrifice, injustice and human frailty. It reminds us that even in the presence of truth, the world can choose violence. Even in the presence of light, darkness can seem to prevail.

And if we are honest, that tension feels familiar today.

We live in a time when conflict is not just geopolitical, it is spiritual. Nations posture, leaders escalate and ordinary people bear the cost in anxiety, uncertainty and loss. But beneath the visible conflicts lies something deeper: a moral exhaustion, a spiritual illness that reveals itself in how we speak to one another, how we define truth, and how easily we abandon grace.

Good Friday forces us to look directly at that condition.

It asks: What happens when we lose our moral compass? When power is valued over principle? When winning becomes more important than what is right?

Yet if Good Friday were the end of the story, it would offer little comfort. It would leave us in a world defined only by suffering and sacrifice. But it is not the end.

Resurrection Sunday changes everything.

It does not erase the pain of Good Friday — it transforms it. It does not deny the darkness — it overcomes it. The resurrection is not simply a theological claim. It is a declaration that despair does not have the final word.

And that is where peace begins.

Not in the absence of conflict but in the presence of hope.

In a world challenged by war, peace cannot be negotiated solely through treaties or enforced through strength alone. Those are necessary tools, but they are not sufficient. Lasting peace begins within individuals, within communities, within the moral framework that shapes how nations act.

We are witnessing what happens when that framework weakens.

When truth becomes negotiable, trust erodes. When compassion is seen as weakness, cruelty gains ground. When faith is reduced to performance rather than lived conviction, it loses its power to guide and to heal.

The message of Easter calls us back.

It calls us to a faith that is not performative but practiced. A faith that shows itself not in words alone but in restraint, in humility, in courage. It calls us to recognize that strength is not measured by domination but by the ability to choose mercy when anger would be easier.

This is not naive. It is necessary.

Because without a moral center, no society, no matter how powerful, can sustain itself. History has shown this time and again. Empires fall not only because of external threats but because of internal decay. The erosion of values precedes the collapse of institutions.

And yet, Easter offers a counternarrative.

It reminds us that renewal is always possible. That even when systems fail, individuals can choose differently. That even when the world feels fractured, healing can begin in the smallest acts: how we speak, how we lead, how we treat those who disagree with us.

Peace, then, is not passive. It is active. It is a discipline.

It requires us to resist the pull of cynicism. To reject the ease of division. To insist on truth even when it is inconvenient, and to extend grace even when it is undeserved.

This Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday, the world will not suddenly become less complicated. Wars will not cease overnight. Leaders will still grapple with decisions that carry immense consequence.

But each of us is given a choice.

To contribute to the noise, or to create space for something better.

To deepen the divide, or to begin bridging it.

To live in reaction, or to live with intention.

The resurrection is not just about what happened. It is about what is possible.

Even now.

Especially now.