HOPE? Catch yourself on.
When I started my year as Moderator, I was asked if I had a theme. "Yes," I said. "My theme is 'hope'."
"Hope? Catch yourself on," they said.
At the time, we were living through one of the most hopeless moments in our history. Furlough payments were being reduced and would soon end.
Businesses were under threat of closure. The pandemic was not going away. People were dying in hospital.
The health services, north and south, were under enormous pressure.
There was even violence on the streets of Belfast.
Hope? Really?
I love this place, because it is my home. But there are some things I hate about it.
I hate our short-sightedness, which pushes kids on to the streets to burn buses.
I lament our evident lack of capacity to see common humanity in the 'other'.
At Christmas, it is as if God whispers in our ear, "Catch yourself on..." and through this astonishing act of love from Bethlehem, flows all the power, which gives us Hope for the future.
He loves us, forgives us and sets us free.
Happy Christmas.
Rt Rev Dr David Bruce
Moderator
Presbyterian Church in Ireland
