Jenny’s Letter 29th March

Dear Friends,

There’s a moment every year, just before Holy Week begins, when I look at the diary and think, “Surely I should feel more panicked than this.”

There is a great deal to prepare, many services to hold, and countless small details to attend to. And yet—this year especially—I find something else sitting underneath it all. Not panic. Not even pressure. Just a quiet sense that this week matters too much to rush past.

Perhaps that’s because the world feels so heavy at the moment. So much noise, so much division, so much that can leave us anxious or weary. It would be easy to hurry straight to Easter—straight to the joy, the light, the celebration—and skip over the difficult middle. But Holy Week asks something different of us.

It begins with Palm Sunday: a crowd cheering, branches waving, hope in the air. Jesus enters Jerusalem and everything looks as though it might finally turn out well. And yet, even in that moment, he knows where the road leads. The story moves quickly from celebration to betrayal, from welcome to rejection, from noise to silence.

And we are invited not to skip it.

Not because God wants us to dwell on suffering, but because this is where we see most clearly who Jesus is—and what God is like. Not distant. Not angry. Not waiting to catch us out. But walking directly into the mess of the world, into human pain, into injustice and fear, and choosing love anyway.

If you’ve ever wondered whether God cares about this world as it is—this is your answer. He doesn’t stand apart from it. He enters it.

If you’ve ever worried that God might be disappointed in you, or distant from you, or somehow against you—look at Jesus in Holy Week. Look at him eating with friends, forgiving those who fail him, carrying the weight of the cross, and speaking words of grace even at the very end. This is not a God who hates. This is a God who loves—deeply, persistently, and without giving up. And that is why Holy Week is worth your time.

You don’t have to come to everything. You don’t have to know all the words or understand every part of it. But don’t skip from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday as though the middle doesn’t matter. Spend a little time in it. Come to one service. Sit quietly in church for a few minutes. Read one of the Gospel accounts at home. Let the story unfold at its proper pace.

Because Easter joy is richer, deeper, and more real when we have walked the road that leads to it.

So if life feels busy, or complicated, or uncertain—this is not one more thing to add to your list. This is an invitation. To pause. To notice. To rediscover hope that is not shallow or fleeting, but grounded in something far stronger.

Holy Week tells us that love is not overcome by darkness. It goes straight through it—and out the other side.

And that is very good news indeed.

With every blessing,