Dear Friends,
We begin 2012 with a great deal of uncertainty in our world. The financial markets are still in a perilous state, peoples jobs are at risk and our standard of living is likely to go down. The European Union and the European currency are in turmoil and the peace which the world desperately seeks seems as elusive as ever.
It seems that, in the words of the dour, Scottish, Private Fraser in Dads Army, "We're doomed, we're doomed!"
However, a new year brings with it a degree of optimism. We look back to the past twelve months and hope and pray that the coming year will be better. We make our own personal resolutions to improve ourselves and, although we might fail, at New Year we have every intention of succeeding.
The Christian Gospel is about hope! It's about recognising that "Good Fridays" do happen but also that Good Friday was followed by Easter.
And Easter didn't just take the world back to the way things once were but rather offered a new way of living.
And perhaps that is what is called for as we begin 2012.
Perhaps we need to recognise that the way the world has tried to be in the past isn't going to work and we need a new way of living.
Quite what this new way will be is difficult to imagine - and we will only know as it unfurls. But our belief in a God who cares for his people can only encourage us to hope for a better world.
The world has faced hard time in the past - and no doubt will in the future. But our God will not abandon us. For our God is a god of love and he cares for his world and offers it the renewal of the resurrection which we celebrate not only at Easter but every time we meet together to share the bread and wine of the Eucharist.
May I wish you every blessing in 2012, no matter what it may bring us.
Ian R