Welcome

Follow the Editor on Twitter @LifeWorkEditor

“ Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic there was an appetite for change but the reshaping of the world has sharpened and accelerated this appetite.

SUMMER is beckoning as this issue reaches you (and hopefully warmer, sunnier days, although you never can be sure if you are in Scotland!)

The end of this month marks the start of summer in our churches with (perhaps) different services, guest preachers and quieter, more reflective services (unless you live in a popular beauty spot when seasonal visitors could pack out pews).

Summer is a time of promise – the time of growth and hope for better times. After difficult days for the Church of Scotland – and there may yet be more to come – summer offers a time for reflection and encouragement. It is also a time to remember the colours of our world.

We need shade to appreciate light and we need both brightness and darkness to truly appreciate the glory of God’s creation. Equally the pilgrim path would be incredibly dull if it was a single straight line with an unchanging landscape. The difficult parts of the path do not last forever, just as the peaks and highest points are not permanent. Both are needed to give an appreciation of the whole journey.

There may have been difficult times within our church – and more of those days may lie ahead, but one thing is certain, the darker days do become brighter, as very clearly demonstrated by the journey through Easter and the glory of Pentecost.

Holy Week is perhaps the best example of the varying colours (light and darkness) of the journey of life – the bright highs of the welcome of Jesus on a donkey by excited, happy crowds, to the gradual dimming of colour and elation replaced with the darkest of moments on the cross on Good Friday, after the fickle crowds turn the tide. Saturday followed with mourning and uncertainty and then the greatest moments ofjoyand hope on Easter Daywith the promise of Resurrection.

This journey offers the same hope for our Church, which is clearly on its own Easter journey. The history books of the future will show the importance of the decisions taken now in forging a new path. There will be both popularity and unpopularity, hard times, fickle crowds – supportive one moment and in opposition the next – but the vision of the moment of the new hope of resurrection should be the inspiration.

The words of Matthew 28:10 recalling the appearance of Jesus to the women who had first been told of his resurrection offer a promise and hope for the future: ‘Then Jesus said to them: ‘Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.’ (NRSV)

Lynne McNeil Editor