On the day I wrote this article, the stock markets were down 11% as the impact of what President Trump termed ‘Liberation Day’ took hold on the global economy. As of April 2, the United States has imposed global tariffs on countries exporting goods and services to America. Some countries have already responded to Trump’s move by imposing retaliatory tariffs on the cost to the United States of exporting their goods into those countries. Now, you might not follow the ups and downs of global stock markets and the twists and turns of the geo-politics, but part of the concern over these tariffs will be their effect on nearly all of us. The US President’s move affects pensions, the cost of car purchases, family savings and more. And the language applied to the advent of these significant and far-reaching tariffs is ‘Liberation Day’. 

The heavy burden imposed on countries and individuals by these tariffs starkly contrasts with Jesus’ message of salvation, liberation, and hope that we celebrate during the Easter season. Jesus took the full weight of human sin on himself on the cross and rose from the dead to offer us new life in Christ. Whereas President Trump’s tariffs lead to hopelessness and despair, the liberation Jesus offers us brings hope. However, as we take our confidence in the Good News of Jesus, we must reconcile what we believe in faith with the world as we experience it; that is the challenge of being a disciple. It might strike you as hard to cling to a message of hope amid a fractured world, but that is the work we must do if we are to point people to Jesus. 

Will Freemont-Brown’s chapter in the Archbishop’s Lent book ‘Wild Bright Hope’ suggests that for Christians, hope is not the same as optimism but inviting Jesus into the challenging and traumatic: the hopeless places of our lives and the world, we can reimagine those spaces with hope. The apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans (12.2) urges early followers of Jesus to ‘not conform to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your [our] mind’. Therefore, the challenge for us as contemporary followers of Jesus is not to deny or play down the despair of tariffs and warfare but, through prayer, invite the Holy Spirit to help us reimagine our outlook on the here and now, in light of the liberation Jesus won for us on the cross and in the resurrection. 

The Venerable Matthew Trick Archdeacon of Derby City and South Derbyshire