Vicar's Letter - 8 Apr 2022

​Kia ora All Saints Whānau,
 
This week we gather together for services again! And what better time than our Palm Sunday celebrations, remembering and joining with the crowd that gathered to welcome Jesus into Jerusalem as King!
 
I always find Palm Sunday such a conflicting event. On the one hand, it is great for us to spend some time rejoicing together and putting Jesus in his rightful place as king in our lives. It is also great to delve into the servant heart of King Jesus - not arriving on a stallion ready to ride into battle but on a mere donkey: a bumpy, much less glamorous ride.
 
But on the other hand, we know what happens in a few days - we set a murderer free instead of the Son of God, one of Jesus's closest friends pretends he never knew him, and we somehow get swayed by the masses to reject him also.
 
I use the present tense here as I think the journey of Holy Week, beginning with Palm Sunday, is best experienced with all its ups and downs, rather that just living in Easter Sunday. We can't read about the crowds welcoming Jesus without getting excited about the hope that Jesus is here to bring God's kingdom near! Likewise, we can't read about the crowds being fickle-minded, missing the point, and rejecting Jesus's authority, without dwelling in the discomfort that we frequently behave in the same way.
 
So this Holy Week, join me in living in each day, with all its ups and downs, until we join together once again to celebrate that Good News: the hope that God is restoring us and the earth, and we can live in true freedom knowing death has no power over us anymore.
 
See you soon,
Emily Spence
Co-Vicar