Welcome to The Glaven Valley Benefice

Thoughts from the Rectory

 for March 2024

Rev Richard Lawry

Dear Friends,

This year, March covers a long and rich period between early in Lent right up to Easter Day, on the last day of the month. Lunar shenanigans mean that Easter is pretty early this year. The date of Easter each year is calculated as being the first Sunday after the Paschal full moon, which is the first full moon on or after 21 March. Complicated! Many of us think it would be very helpful for everyone if the date of Easter could made more consistent, and celebrated at the same time each year – say the first Sunday in April (just as Christmas is always celebrated on the same date). But don’t hold your breath, I think!

Anyway, March this year takes in a wide sweep. There’s Mothering Sunday on the 10th. The following week Passiontide begins, and a week later we celebrate Palm Sunday, when we remember Christ’s entry into Jerusalem, riding on a donkey, a symbol of peace and humility. Then we move into Holy Week, and reflect on the love and self- sacrifice of Christ, with Good Friday, of course, being the particular focus of that, the day we celebrate his death. And it all leads inexorably to the joy of Easter Day, when we mark the resurrection, and his rising to new life.

The hope of Easter seems to me to be more important than ever. I encounter so much anxiety and sadness about the state of the world at the moment – I’m sure we all do. I feel sad myself, when I look at what’s going on in the Middle East – not least in Palestine/Israel, the area where Jesus himself was born and lived and died – but also much closer to home, where there is so much inequality and uncertainty and poverty, and real concern for the future. Things can seem bleak sometimes. But what Easter says to me is that the darkness will not have the last word. In the resurrection, we have the promise that goodness and love have won. Love has overcome hatred. Life has overcome death. Light has overcome the darkness. One day, as Christ has promised, everything will be reconciled and healed.

And in the meantime, we can know now the hope and the confidence that promise brings, remembering that nothing can separate us from the love of God. God journeys with us, in life, in death, in the life to come. That’s worth celebrating, and I hope you’ll be able to do so with us at the end of thismonth! All will be very welcome!

Wishing you all a very blessed month, and a Happy Easter when it comes!

Richard.