From the Loch a Tuath News January 2000

I spoke last month about things past. The end of the year is a time for reflection and retrospection, to remind ourselves of where we have come from. Last year's end was more significant than most, marking the boundary of a decade, a century and a millennium. We are now over the threshold, and into the newness of the year 2000.

January was called after the two-headed Greek god Janus. His great ability was the ability to look in two directions. There is a sense in which we are like that at this juncture of world history. We look back, but we are also called to look ahead. Christian hope means nothing if it does not mean that there is prospection as well as retrospection.

While we talk of looking back to the past, as if we were walking into the future, there was an ancient Jewish tradition which spoke of the past as being in front of us. After all, it is the past we can see. The future is what is unknown, and, in a sense, behind our back. We are walking backwards into the future, not knowing what may lie ahead. Sometimes, given the enormity of some of the things we are called to endure, we are thankful that that is the case.

But I think Christian hope means the ability to face the future, for all that it is unknown. Hope is a great thing. It is not a blind, wishful desire for things to turn out alright, but an expression of confidence in the God to whom past, present and future are all known. Faith in him is the substance of things hoped for. Christ, we are told, endured the cross because he looked forward to the glory that was to follow. Paul lived the Christian life forgetting what was behind and pressing to what lay ahead. The way of Christ, two thousand years on, is the way of hope, the way that fills a new millennium with things to long for.

The Bible's self-attestation is that it is through the Scriptures that we have hope (Romans 15:4). In spite of all that modern science, and even modern theology, has told us, we still have a Bible which authenticates itself as a word from Heaven for our souls. Through that Bible there is hope for us. Let us dedicate ourselves to the Book at the beginning of this new decade.

We also know that Christ is our hope (Colossians 1:27; 1 Timothy 1:1). It is through union with Him, and through having a living, powerful relationship with him that we can enjoy the dynamism of a good hope through grace. There is no hope for us apart from the Person of the God-Man and the work of his cross. May we dedicate ourselves to the Mediator at the beginning of this new era.

We know too that our hope is in God's saving work in the lives of men. Our helmet, Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5:8, is the hope of salvation. It is possible to have God working in our lives. It is possible to face the future knowing that what he did to save, bears results in the salvation of men and women. May we dedicate ourselves to making that Salvation known at the beginning of this new age.

Hope. We all need it. We can live without much, but without hope there is nothing to life. So I have a dream for the year 2000; the dream of a full church, of a happy religion, of a revival blessing, of continued preaching, of hundreds of conversions, of peaceful living. I have a dream of peace on earth and goodwill to men. I have a dream that God will come down and visit us this year. That is the hope that fuels every sermon I preach and every endeavour I make.

May our dreams be turned to reality, and may you have a prosperous and blessed year 2000.