Over these past weeks, we have been living inside a different kind of story. Mended, our Lenten them, has not been about fixing everything or pretending that what is broken can simply disappear. It has been about telling the truth—about wear, about strain, about the places in our lives and in our world that have been stretched thin. We have named what it means to be worn. We have faced what tears. We have practiced gathering what feels separated and learning, slowly, what it means to stitch things back together. 

It has been a meaningful and weighty journey: weighty in the sense that it has mattered. It has asked something of us. It has invited us to pay attention—not just to what is happening around us, but to what is happening within us. 

And now, as we enter Holy Week, that work does not stop. It deepens. 

Palm Sunday began with movement. There is energy and hope, but there is also tension. The cry of “Hosanna—save us” is not just a celebration; it is a plea. It carries expectation, urgency, and longing. Something is being asked of God, and something is being asked of the people. The story begins to pull tight. As the week unfolds, that tension does not resolve—it stretches. 

On Maundy Thursday, we will find ourselves at the table and at the basin. 

Jesus kneels. He washes feet. He breaks bread. He shares a meal. He invites us to participate with him. These are not dramatic gestures, but they are deeply relational ones. In the face of what is coming, Jesus does not withdraw. He serves. He gives himself. Love takes shape not in spectacle, but in presence. 

And then comes Good Friday. 

Here, everything feels as though it might break. The tension reaches its fullest expression. Betrayal, abandonment, suffering, death. The story does not turn away from these realities. It does not soften them. It allows them to be fully seen. And yet—even here—love does not let go. Love is stretched and it holds. 

Even in crucifixion. 

And then, Easter. 

In the resurrection, we do not see a return to the way things were. The wounds are not denied. The story is not undone. Instead, something new emerges. Life continues—transformed, not replaced. The mending holds. 

Mary stands at the tomb and does not recognize Jesus at first. She thinks he is the gardener. And in many ways, that is exactly right. Resurrection is not a spectacle dropped into the world from a distance. We do not understand it until we encounter it for ourselves. Resurrection calls us by name and invites us to move into what is now possible. 

This is where the journey of Lent has been leading us. To freedom. Even if the scars of the past remain, they do not limit new life abundant. As the Apostle Paul writes, “Death has lost its sting.” Not because death never happens, but because it no longer defines the end of the story. 

This week, may we walk the story fully. 

And when the morning comes, may we receive it not as an escape—but as a release into life. 

Grace and Peace, 

Pastor M@