I celebrated Palm Sunday this morning at the picturesque parish church of Girton where the Revd Mandy Maxwell is growing the congregation as young families return to the fold. (Having a young family herself may be the “secret weapon” here …).

Needleworkers in the congregation have been doing a wonderfully skilled restoration of the white and golf festal frontal for the altar and I was asked to rededicate it just in time for Easter (easy with the holy water there, Bishop).

As well as movingly performed dramatic reading of the Passion I was asked to preach on What it means to be a people who follow Jesus on the way to Jerusalem.

“Jerusalem” in the Bible and its interpretative tradition is more than just a Jewish city: it stands for all Israel, the church, the soul, and God’s new creation. So as Jesus goes to Jerusalem he is inaugurating the kingdom of God – his words for the new Israel and new Creation - and inviting us to walk with him towards it, as individual souls/disciples and as the church.

When we do that a ripple effect starts which I see as God’s plan for the coming of kingdom, for how the Lord’s Prayer comes true

What might that mean in practice? Who else is on the move, making an exodus, going through the waters this Easter, in need of new life?… How can we engage with the refugee crisis and other need of world, as we leave church at Easter and start to live out the resurrection in the days which follow, praying to be the generous and visible people of Jesus Christ, our Risen Lord. That compassion will be the touchstone of how far we have grown in the character and deepened in the company of Christ.