Reader Writes February 2023

I was cycling steadily up a steep lane in the welcome bright sun just around the winter

solstice when a great spotted woodpecker drummed loudly on a rotten branch in the

hedgerow beside me. I stopped in delight; it’s one of those events to surprise you in the

bleak mid-winter. Almost immediately other woodpeckers replied with their own territorial

tattoo of drumming from across the fields. This species seems to respond to sunlight;

others may wait for the temperature to improve. The woo-wooing of the secretive stock

dove for example, which I’ve also already heard this season, sings away discretely from

giant old trees in the park. By early February we will be enjoying the sweetest of almost all

songs cascading from deep within rain-soaked hedges, the dunnock.

The seasonal choreography of plants teases and delights as well. As foul weather gives us

a break here and there, letting the sun come in, the wreckage of winter is overtaken by

early bulbs, adventurous flowering shrubs, the long awaited delights of favourites like

hellebores. I shall certainly be off hunting in January for the glorious scented Hamamelis

and then the sweet Daphne; and everywhere, as mild spells allow, there will be the

promise of spring bulbs pushing up out of old dead leaves, catkins lengthening, pollen

bursting in yellow clouds, buds swelling, shoots glowing with colour.

This is just to say that nature gives us every year a beautiful sermon in hope. We never

tire of it because we know we always need it. Hope in a biblical sense is intimately

connected to faith. Old Abraham and Sarah were promised a child despite their age and

circumstances. We read that Abraham “in hope believed against hope” that he would

become the father of many nations as he had been promised. In our dealings with God,

hope is inseparable from faith. Hope isn’t a reward for something we’ve managed to get

right, but the certainty of what God has promised despite it all. Hope is there for us to

grasp firmly and joyfully.

The writer of the letter to the Hebrews is very insistent on hope; he is determined to make

his readers understand that God’s promises are certain and dependable. Hope is not like a

kite in the wind, twisting and trimming at the mercy of changing fortunes, flying high but in

constant danger of crashing; no, it’s “a steadfast anchor of the soul” that enters into the

inner place, unmoving, though circumstances may conspire to defeat and discourage us.

Like that sound anchor, hope is sure and dependable.

There are plenty of discouraging things to dwell on in a new year with its seasons still

ahead of us. Whether it’s the overwhelming seriousness of wars and climate breakdown or

our familiar domestic tribulations, we need to hold on to that secure anchor of Christ’s

promise, and the sure hope that he will hold on to us and give us a secure future in

eternity. Let’s give ourselves daily sermons, or just straight forward encouragement, from

God’s wonderful creation all around us. As new life emerges confidently and certainly out

of the darkness and decay of the old season, we can stride or cycle upwards rejoicing that

God has the believer’s future in his hands. Hope is knowing and trusting and rejoicing.

Robert MacCurrach