Dear Friends,

I am delighted to tell you that we have a resident blackbird in the garden. I don’t think it is the one we had in Watford, I don’t think he has come with us, but I am so pleased that he is here! He sits on the top branch of the big tree in the front garden and sings his heart out. Even today, when there is a slight nip in the air, the bird and the sunshine and the spring flowers make the spirits soar with the promise of things to come. I love the way spring unfolds - from the desolate cold wastes of winter to the days of the heady, blousy and beautiful scents of cherry blossom in the warm late spring sunshine.

If Easter were not in spring, I wonder if it would feel so significant? For Easter too unfolds - and like spring, it needs to be experienced in its totality and with all the senses. We are still in Lent as I write. In the time of austerity and barrenness, but soon it will be Palm Sunday, when the story of our Lord’s last days begins as he approaches Jerusalem, knowing that he is to face betrayal and death. The crowds roared their approval as he rode into the town on the back of a borrowed donkey, but their joy and approval was soon to turn to hatred and demands for Jesus death.

Jesus had gone to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover with his disciples – a very special Jewish festival remembering the time when Moses led the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt. They ate the Passover meal as custom decreed – and at that meal, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it and offered it to his disciples to share, and then he took a cup of wine, blessed it and again offered it to his disciples. We call this day Maundy Thursday. It is a day full of significance – we remember our sharing of the bread and wine at the Eucharist, using the same words that Jesus used. We remember Jesus giving himself in service of others, as he washed the disciples feet – and we remember the agony in the garden of Gethsemane as Jesus asked his Father to spare him the agony of death on the cross. Then there was the betrayal with a kiss.

Maundy Thursday night leads in to Good Friday morning. The Church should be stripped bare of all the beautiful things that usually go to help our worship. In some places, people will have watched through the night, or at least until midnight, as a symbolic watching with Jesus as the dreadful scourging and mock trial took place. Good Friday is a bleak day, a day I can never quite manage. It is the day we remember Our Lord’s death on the cross, when all goodness seems to have gone from the earth. The bleakness continues through Holy Saturday – despite the buzz of anticipation because we know the end of the story and are getting ready for it!

Then, on Easter Day, the Church is full of light and flowers and music and people, sounds and scents and colours – and we carry in the big Paschal Candle proclaiming the light of Christ. The darkness has gone – God is alive in the world today! Somewhere in the depth of the night, a miracle has happened and it is so exciting.

I should hate to live in a country where there was no spring – where everything was an even temperature and there was no bleakness to contrast with the joy of new life. So it is with Easter. I cannot think how it would be to celebrate Easter Day with none of the barrenness of Holy Week. Do come to as much as you can – and most of all, come and celebrate Our Lord’s glorious resurrection on Easter day!

Yours in Christ

Jo

Please pray for Christians throughout the world, especially those to be baptised at Easter.

Saturday 3^rd April 10.00am-11.30am

In the Manor Room – next to the Village Hall

Admission: FREE

7.30pm. Tuesday 30^th March in Church.

Do please come to this important meeting and have your say in how the Church manages its affairs!

Last month's highly successful coffee morning, hosted by Mrs. Win Waller raised £460 towards Church funds. A big thank you to Win and to everyone who helped with and supported the event.