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Good morning. A speech by President F.W. de Klerk at the opening of the South African Parliament on this day in 1990 marked the first tentative steps towards dismantling the hated system of racial segregation; know to the world as Apartheid, promising every citizen in that land “equal rights, treatment and opportunity".

And while the journey is still not complete, few would have believed at the time that the people of South Africa would, in the next few years, be given the right to vote freely, regardless of their race.  Or that Nelson Mandela would have gone from being a political prisoner to be South Africa’s first democratically elected President…a giant on the world’s political stage and a legend of their history.

It seems particularly appropriate to me that this anniversary coincides with the day that Christians celebrate the Feast of Candlemas, recounted in the Bible as the day Mary and Joseph presented Jesus in the Temple, 40 days after his birth.  An old priest called Simeon caught a glimpse of Jesus, as his parents brought their first-born before the Lord in thanksgiving, fulfilling a dream that Simeon had experienced years before, that the Christ, the Messiah would be revealed to him before he died.

When years of waiting turn into decades, there must be times when hope seems like folly and dreams are surely destined to be dashed.  Yet just a glimpse of the future can bring hope and the chance of fulfilment; whether that's Simeon catching sight of the Christ-child he'd longed to see, or a statement to the people of South Africa, that each of them wpuld, one day, have equal status and standing in their society.

Once any of us see the future and its possibility, the die is cast very quickly and things are rarely quite the same again;

So Lord, make us mindful of the possibilities that today brings…and as we ponder and wonder about our own hopes and dreams, may we be ready and expectant to catch just a glimpse of what might be.  Amen.