For homeowners and city workers, recent events have eradicated the belief that faith in equities, money markets or in bricks and mortar would be enough for security and happiness. The fear of a recession or even depression, especially for those who are already poor and who will be hardest hit, looms large in our economic consciousness.

But beyond this fear of the (monetary) sky falling in, there are many people operating in the "real" economy and "real life" for whom the fact that the world can be both scary and uncertain isn't news.

There are the real and daily tragedies of life that rob us of any sense of security. Events such as bereavement, ill-health, redundancy, relationship breakdown or crime demonstrate how precarious our sense of security can be, particularly if we create a world of meaning for ourselves where God is absent.

Not that Christians, or people of faith, have an exemption from the daily insecurity of life. The doubt brought on by life events is a necessary part of making sense of faith.

Faith is not a crutch to lean on – but the very act of learning. St John of the Cross wrote of such moments as the "dark night of the soul" and it was instructive for me to read of those moments endured by Mother Theresa of Calcutta when she felt far from God, as each of us may do during our lives. At such times, I think of what must have been going through the hearts and minds of the 12 disciples on that very first Saturday after Good Friday.

The joy that comes from a faith in Christ may have been in short supply that Saturday when those first followers of Jesus wondered what had become of the man for whom they had given up all they had. The disciples had fled in fear, worried that they too might be arrested or crucified.

Fear can be a powerful emotion. As a country, there are times when fear has got a grip of us leading to the support of policies and mindsets that can have tragic consequences. One only need consider the decision to deport Ama Sumani, diagnosed with a terminal illness, who was removed from a Cardiff hospital in January after her visa expired.

The news that Ama Sumani has died in Ghana shows us the inhuman consequences of the politics of fear which inform our immigration policy. As the editorial in the medical journal The Lancet stated at the time of Ama Sumani's removal: "The UK has committed an atrocious barbarism." Such is the consequence of the politics of fear.

Compassion and a measured response are thrown out of the window as we give in to the fear of "the thin end of the wedge". Proportionality becomes the victim. This is a small island which cannot accommodate everyone who wants to live here, but people like Ama Sumani must be treated on grounds of compassion and merit, and not hidden behind the inflexible language of rules and regulations.

The challenge for each of us is to make sure that we are guided by justice and not fear. In terms of international policy, this means a rejection of the pre-emptive strike. This means not going for unilateral action but rather waiting for a UN mandate and acting along principles of justice. It means – to use the politics of the playground – not beating someone up because you thought that they might hit you if
you didn't.

Domestically, it means being sure that civil liberties are guarded as we live through difficult times. That we do not let those criminals who seek to commit acts of mass murder achieve a moral triumph through a consequent over-reaction, whether through the extension of detention without trial or the use of "water boarding" torture.

This country has lived through the days of bombers and murderers attacking our politicians and citizens in the 1980s and 1990s. We came through that and we will come through this. We must not bow down to the fear that comes with terrible acts of murder, but rather stand up to such fear in a desire for a just outcome.

As a young man living in Uganda under Idi Amin, I became well versed in the vagaries of violence. When I arrived in Kenya some weeks ago, after the violence that followed the disputed elections, I thought I would be prepared for what I would find. I was wrong.

In a cramped camp for internally displaced peoples near Nairobi, I met a young Maasai woman whom I will call Sophie. Angry young men of other tribes broke into her home while she and her family were sleeping. They pulled her two young boys away from her and threw them out of the house. Then they chopped off her husband's head with a machete as he stood right in front of her. After that, they ransacked the house and set fire to it.

When Sophie's neighbours found her, she no longer knew who she was. The doctor told me she was so traumatised that she had literally lost her mind. All he could do was to give her anti-depressants to block out the days. So, in one night, Sophie lost not just her home and her belongings but her past, present, and future. She was only 28-years-old – my son's age.

To witness the suffering that Kenya has endured in the wake of December's disputed election result was a truly shocking experience. A thousand people were dead and thousands upon thousands were made homeless. With peace talks on a knife edge, the future for everyone was horribly uncertain.

In the slums, I saw God at work in this human misery. I met families who had opened their homes to their neighbours and taken in as many people as they possibly could – sometimes up to 60 at a time in houses built for three of four. Would that happen here? I look around me and I just don't know.

In Kisumu, where the trouble started, the cathedral and its precincts were being used for shelter. In Eldoret, the largest refugee camp, housing more than 2,000 people, the bishops of the Anglican church were at the forefront of providing relief.

Such camps exist in England too, but they are very different places where the spirit of hope that flourished and rung out in Eldoret is absent and has been replaced with a spirit of despair. I visited one such camp at Oakington Detention Centre near Cambridge in February. Just as the camp in Eldoret represented the triumph of hope over despairing circumstances, so Oakington is a symbol of what happens when fear triumphs over compassion.

The story is told of the young boy who was asked where he thought Jesus had gone after he died on Good Friday? The boy, remembering his catechism, replied: "Jesus went to the darkest places of Hell." The boy paused and then added: "He was looking for his friend, Judas."

Saturday Easter Eve reminds us that in the darkest places of hopelessness, hope still remains. The dawning of a new day on that first Easter Sunday broke through despair, shredded every doubt and replaced an endless midnight with the intensity of a thousand suns that burst forth from an empty tomb. At first the disciples, still prisoners to their fear, refused to believe the reports of the women who had seen Jesus of Nazareth alive. But the fire of hope had been kindled within them and soon after they saw for themselves the risen Christ.

As our own tomorrow dawns, Christ stands ready to greet us
with the hope of new life. He stands ready to welcome each of us into a Godly embrace where we can know what it is to be forgiven the consequences of our fear and be set on a new road guided by justice and compassion. The Risen Christ says: "Fear not, I was dead, I am now alive for ever more." Let us rejoiced and be glad in the physicality of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. We too shall rise in Him!