We will re-enact the Jewish Passover Meal, or ‘Seder’. The Passover Seder is a ritual feast at the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Passover and was the backdrop to the Passion and Crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

The ritual involves the retelling of the story of the liberation of the Israelites from ancient Egypt, taken from the Book of Exodus.

We are all familiar with the story. The Egyptian Pharoah orders that all first-born Israelite males must be killed, as there were too many Israelites living in Egypt. But God appears to Moses and asks him to go to Pharaoh and demand he lets the Israelites go. But Pharaoh refuses, and so God sends a series of plagues on Egypt, the last of which consists of the angel of death killing Egyptian first-born children.

But the angel is unable to distinguish between Israelite and Egyptian children. So, to protect their own first-born, the Israelites mark the doors of their homes with lamb’s blood, so the angel of death will know to pass over them.

As well as retelling the Exodus story, Seder customs include drinking four cups of wine, eating matzah, partaking of symbolic foods, and celebrating one’s freedom.

The picture shows a 19th century Ukrainian print of the Seder table.

Every Tuesday morning at 10am

Simply tune in on Zoom and enjoy a few moments of quiet, prayerful reflection as the week unfolds. It will last no longer than 10 minutes.

Meeting ID: 892 2955 4820 Passcode: 836488

A time to pause, pray, reflect and reconnect.

No preparation needed.

Time for conversation for those who can stay.

“….Waiting on God, learning to be passive in a way creative for your inner life, is not a question of thinking about God, but of growing in stillness. It has to do with prayer, and with music or from the simple contemplation of the world about you.” (Michael Mayne, ‘A Year Lost and Found’)

The Holy Week services, from Palm Sunday to Easter Day, are quite unlike anything else in the church’s calendar. For once we are not spectators: instead we are here to take our part in the events around us. We are the people of Israel, waving our branches of palm and shouting Hosanna to the Son of David. We are the disciples, eating and drinking at that solemn and mysterious last supper in the Upper Room. With St Mary and St John, we watch in shock and despair at the death of Jesus on the Cross. And, with Mary Magdalene, we see an open tomb and, singing Alleluia, we run to tell our friends the glorious news of Christ's resurrection.

The week begins with Palm Sunday. We process through the church to symbolise our Lord's entry into Jerusalem. Together with the people of Israel, we have followed Jesus and been amazed as he has performed his miracles and pulled the crowds. And as he dramatically enters Jerusalem, on a donkey, we bathe in the sunlight of the superstar and wave our palm branches to welcome him.

But the people who will crucify Jesus on Good Friday are the same people who honour him today. They don't crucify an unknown or a stranger. They crucify a man who has extended to them a love, a dignity and a majesty. Today they shout, ‘Hosanna to the king’, and on Friday they will shout, ‘we have no king but Caesar’.

Why? Because we human beings are fickle, we change our minds, we are swayed by others - because we are made up of a mixture of different people and different feelings. And because of that thing inside us which makes it so difficult to receive unrestrained, unlimited, boundless and undemanding love.

Our choral service will include the St John Passion, set to music by Spain's great Renaissance composer, Tomas Luis de Victoria, and sung by members of the Choir La Vid y La Vida.