It’s springtime. The season of new life and new hope.

It seems to me that a week or so ago, we were cowering in the darkness of winter, closing our doors to the cold, spending more time indoors and in a sense, going into a period of hibernation. It might just be an ‘ageing’ thing for me, but I find each winter seems to get a bit longer and colder. After a while, the cold enters the bones and is hard to shake – yes, I’m sure it is an ageing thing!

Sometimes – particularly in winter, it’s easy to get weighed down by a sense of hopelessness. It seems sometimes that all we seem to hear about through the media are the negatives – after all, ‘good news doesn’t sell’. It seems sometimes that as a society we don’t always do very well at imparting a sense of hope to our children. It sometimes seems that we don’t give ourselves a sense of hope. That’s winter thinking. That’s winter living!

Have you noticed though, that in springtime, changes in Melbourne happen quickly. As soon as the last goal has been kicked in the local footy comp, and the presentation ‘pie night’ done, the tractors are out there at the local park uncovering the cricket pitch ready for the season ahead. The sun starts to shine, the days get warmer and world comes to life. All of a sudden the blossoms appear on the trees, a warmth can be felt in the air and the promise of a tomorrow – of a future – becomes real. It’s a very ‘forward looking’ time – a time of hope. We can see a way forward. We can feel the return of the warm.

So, is our vision for the future … our sense of hope – as tangible as the season changing around us? Do we as a faith community exude a vision of hope? Do our lives live out the words that we sing often – ‘Faith, hope and love, this is what we long for’? Hopefully our response is yes – or it should be. The season is one of new stuff – new life, new ways and new hope. Do we reflect the season in our faith journey? Do we recognise the gospel parallel? Do we understand that through Christ, we can emerge from the cold season of set ways, fear and apprehension? Do we understand that faith and action in the name of Christ empowers us to dream in hope in a world that sometimes seems hopeless?

Maybe we should take the opportunity afforded by this changing season to ‘spring clean’ our ideas about why we’re here, what we want to achieve, how we’ll achieve it, and what our hopes are. Let’s look towards the future serving God in this community with a sense of excitement, of commitment, a sense of anticipation and energy, and most of all, with a sense of hope!

Peter Heazlewood – for the Leaders