My dear Friends,

It probably has been so before, but reading aloud the gospel which speaks of Jesus' final days as I did on Palm Sunday to those who were there, felt an uncomfortably contemporary thing to do.

It all seemed very real and immediate. Strained relationships between friends, power struggles that sought to silence someone who was offering an alternative to the party line, betrayal by someone who was trusted, feeling out of control as the power of the state kicked in, friends helpless to intervene as the inevitable suffering and death of a loved one takes place before their eyes.....

The horror of the story. Jesus, a man we think of preaching love and forgiveness, healing the sick and embracing the outcast. A man of compelling presence who helped make God more real and immediate for others, slaughtered, silenced, suffocated, scourged, nailed to an instrument of torture and killed.

It was not easy to carry on reading on Sunday, it was tempting just to stop, for the events seemed not to be happening 2,000 years ago in another land, but in the here and now of our existences.

Perhaps it is because you and I witness so much suffering, pain, disappointment, persecution, fear, injustice, horror and cruelty on the news on television that superimposing the suffering of Jesus onto such landscapes seems almost unbearable as we register, this time of year more than any other, the reality of what some members of the human family did to one we believe to be our creator, indeed the reality of what some members of the human family continue to do to His creatures and His creation.

Which is why you and I need not just to prayerfully connect the suffering of Jesus 2,000 years ago with the suffering of so many now in 2025, but also to be present on Easter Day as the Paschal Candle is lit and raised in church, a symbol of life triumphing over death, light over darkness, love over hate. To hear the Resurrection Gospel proclaimed which makes real to us now the energy of renewal and regeneration which began in such an unpromising place in 1st century Palestine and which still infects creation with its breath of new life.

If Jesus connected with the cruelty and suffering experienced by people from His cross 2,000 years ago, so too we can connect with the transformation He offers us from His empty tomb.

May that energy of new life be real to us in a new way this Easter; may it fuel our prayers as we focus our thoughts on those who continue to struggle in this world; may He breathe new possibilities into the world order and dis-order, that fresh possibilities come into being between divided nations and may our broken, frightened and fragmented world know greater healing, unity and reconciliation as we move forward, praying that it may be into His future for a humanity He cares about and loves.

Please join us at St Mary's as we celebrate Jesus` saving acts over the coming days.

With blessings and best wishes,

Jeff