30th March 2026

From a Christian perspective the calendar this week marks the culmination of the most significant events in all of human history. We remember Jesus’s final meal with his disciples, and the bread and wine which have proclaimed his broken body and shed blood for almost 2000 years. We recall Jesus’s betrayal, arrest, and trial promoted by his own people. We consider Jesus’s undeserved mocking, scourging, and humiliation. We commemorate Jesus’s death on the cross for the sins of all humanity. We reflect on Jesus’s burial and his lying in the grave. And we celebrate Jesus’s glorious resurrection, through which we share in the hope of eternal life.

Yet with the passing of the years perhaps we can become desensitised to the human reality and emotion of all these events. When we read them as a narrative centuries later, and know the end of the story, perhaps it can start to feel quite mundane, particularly when we are familiar with global atrocities presented as rolling news. But Jesus’s family and friends experienced these episodes in real-time without fully understanding what would happen next. They lived through the human emotions of fear, doubt, anger, pain, hurt, grief, mourning and joy. They were eyewitnesses whose lives would never be the same again. Let’s consider just a few examples:

Simon Peter was so infuriated by the soldiers who came to arrest Jesus that he cut off the High Priest’s servant’s ear (John 18:10). He denied knowing Jesus no less than three times, despite insisting he would rather die than do this, later being filled with remorse and weeping bitterly (Matthew 26:35, 75). Yet Peter was the first to enter Jesus’s empty tomb and witness the folded graveclothes (John 20:6-7).

Mary watched her own son die, and it’s been said that seeing your own child die, and having to bury them is the hardest thing to do. Mary’s sister and two other close friends were with her, experiencing the terror of watching Jesus die the most excruciating death right in front of their eyes (John 19:25).

Mary Magdalene was the first to discover the stone rolled away from Jesus’s tomb, and thinking his body had been stolen, she wept (John 20:1, 11). The Greek word translated ‘weeping’ means ‘to wail aloud’. Yet not long afterwards she experienced a rollercoaster from deep sadness to immense joy when she was the first to encounter the risen Lord. And it was Mary Magdalene who ‘went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord” ’ (verses 16-18). 

John who was an eyewitness of these events, wrote a first hand account, and went on to care for Jesus’s mother for the rest of her days (John 19:26-27). Later he reported precise details about the folded graveclothes which surely wouldn’t have been made up if this was a fictitious story (John 20:4-7). As a result of what he saw he believed that Jesus had indeed risen from the dead (v.8), something which according to the Apostle Paul was later witnessed by over 500 people who saw Jesus alive after his resurrection (I Corinthians 15:6).

Jesus himself went through incredible emotions. On the Mount of Olives he prayed “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done” (Luke 22:42). The agony was so intense that he began to sweat drops of blood (verse 44). Later he cried out in anguish “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46) fulfilling the words of Psalm 22. 

What about us? What are our emotions as we remember these incredible events once again? Events which are not just ancient history, but which are our story too, as we share in his story! What is our reaction, and how are our lives changed as we too share in his death and encounter the risen Lord? 

Local congregation:
Grace Communion Peterborough
Farcet Village Hall
Main Street
Farcet
Peterborough
PE7 3AN

Meeting time:
Sunday 11.00 am

Local congregational contact:
Richard Dempsey
Email:  richard.dempsey@btinternet.com
Local church website: GRACE COMMUNION CHURCH PETERBOROUGH – Landing Page

Word of Life contact:
wordoflife@gracecom.church