Hope in a Time of Political Crisis

This is the transcript of the Revd Prof David Wilkinson’s ‘Thought For the Day’ on BBC Radio 4, 17^th February 2025

Good morning. As the political tsunami of the phone call between Presidents Trump and Putin impacted the political and military situation in Ukraine and the wider Western alliance, I was with a friend who decades ago worked on the technology of the old Moscow to Washington hotline.  This was created after the Cuban missile crisis to enable direct communication between the superpowers.

I was preaching at the wedding of this old friend, who is now in his eighties. A remarkable engineer, who had not only pioneered fibre optics but also technology to locate lighting storms.  His younger bride, in her seventies was equally remarkable – from working on a ranch as a cowgirl, to being a nun and then emerging as a pioneering dementia nurse. Both had endured difficult former relationships but had rediscovered joy, hope and love later in life. They married in Asheville, North Carolina, in a community recovering from the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene and I was struck by this symbol of the hope of their love in a fragile world.

My friend and I share a love not only of science, but also the music of the American singer songwriter Nanci Griffith. When on tour she would buy local newspapers and collect stories of weddings from the personal ads. These ‘little love affairs’, in the name of one of her albums, became the seeds of imagination for songs, but also seeds of hope when the headlines featured war and injustice.

Weddings may seem trivial compared to big political issues. Yet in John’s Gospel, it is fascinating that the first miraculous sign of the power of Jesus is not done in Jerusalem, the place of political and military power, but at a wedding of an unnamed couple in a small and unremarkable place called Cana. Jesus, as a wedding guest, turns water into wine. This is a symbol of the coming new life of the Kingdom that Jesus is bringing, but it is also a divine affirmation of the celebration of this little love affair in Cana.

My friend believed that the technology of communication through the hotline would provide hope in a time of world crisis. In that he is a realist who knows that peace is a complex process to bring about.  But in his wedding, for him there was something just as profound going on – the joy of human love which gave us a glimpse of the love of God which is embodied in Jesus in the serving of the other. And that gives me hope, whatever the headlines.