Although we would like some sort of timetable as to what will happen when in relation to the return of Jesus, we don’t get one, but we do get the command from Jesus to be ‘on the watch’, ready for his return. He helps his disciples realise that his death on the cross will not be the end of the story. He shows that he is in control of what is happening to him (an arrangement with the man with the water jar, just like the arrangement of the donkey on Palm Sunday – 19:31) and he re-assigns the symbols of the Passover meal so that they point to him and no longer to the escape from Egypt in the days of Moses. May we grow in confidence that ‘our story’ is safe in his hands.

The Revd. David Hildred