THE Crediton branch of the Mothers’ Union (MU) is accustomed to having a service of Holy Communion in Holy Week. Clearly it is impossible this year so our approach to Easter feels very different.

As I write, we are still at the beginning of this week which is so important to Christians. It is the week when, in heart and mind, we share in Jesus’ last journey: from His triumphal entry to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, to the empty tomb on Easter morning. During it we acknowledge and celebrate those great themes of incarnation, suffering, death, resurrection and glorification.

By the Fourth century, Palm Sunday was already celebrated in Jerusalem, complete with a read or sung account of Christ’s Passion from the Gospels. That first day of Holy Week thus anticipates the whole story, the whole journey.

As Jesus and His disciples arrived in the holy city, they joined with thousands of faithful Jews, from far and wide, coming to share in the feast of the Passover, a week – long feast of thanksgiving which Jews still celebrate annually, often coinciding with Easter.

At that point it looked as if Jesus and His friends were simply doing the same as everyone else.

But, as He moved resolutely towards His betrayal, trial and death on the cross, Jesus was very alone for His disciples found it hard to grasp what He had been telling them about His last days.

It is Maundy Thursday which, for us, signifies the themes of service and humility with the remembrance of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet before their meal together. It is a time when we consider how to be good neighbours to those in need. Then we recall His anguish in the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus’ perfect loving obedience was made abundantly clear.

The three hours devotion, once common in most parish churches, began in the 19th century.

Today the focus of services is mainly on the Last Hour. Congregations quietly and prayerfully think of Jesus being made to carry His cross up the hill to Golgotha, being nailed hand and foot to it and amid taunts and jeers from onlookers, being left to die slowly under a hot sun.

And Saturday, we see a bare church, stripped of ornament and liturgy, silent, desolate, gradually, perhaps, attracting a few “watchers” as the mood slowly shifts to a sense of completion and tranquillity. Then the Easter vigil begins, and a mood of expectation ripples through those present.

Perhaps this year, more than ever, we have time to reflect on our own personal journeys.

In her address to the nation, the Queen recalled her first public broadcast in 1940, aged only 14. We can all look back on where we have come from, what we have achieved and our hopes for the future.

Soon after his installation as Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby said: “There is no final justice, security, love or hope if it is not based on rootedness in Christ.” By heeding his words, we’ll have the courage and stamina to keep doing our bit.

As we celebrate the Light of the World coming nearly 2,000 years ago to redeem us from our old ways and give us the chance of a new beginning, we know we face the unknown. But that one man brought with him the assurance of sins forgiven and showed us, in person, how to live new lives confidently in the light of God’s unfailing love.

Paul, writing to new Christians in Rome, about AD 57, emphasised that “neither death nor life… nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord”.

In 1623, very ill, John Donne, Dean of London’s St Paul’s Cathedral wrote “No man is an Iland, entire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine… any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde…”

Others have been here before us so let us take courage and hope from them for the coming days and weeks.

Jenny Francis

Chaplain to Crediton Mothers’ Union