Bishop Gregor speaks at Anniversary Service for Bin Lorry Tragedy
The Rt Rev Dr Gregor Duncan, Bishop of Glasgow and Galloway took part in a service to mark the anniversary of the bin lorry tragedy in Glasgow’s city centre last December. The service was organised by Glasgow Churches Together. Bishop Gregor preached the sermon. In the BBC live coverage of the service, it was reported that ‘Bishop says events on Queen Street a year ago were an accident waiting to happen and said it was “pointless and meaningless – a consequence of human folly and irresponsibility”.’
Bishop Gregor also said “Christians believe that the God who became flesh of our flesh, bone of our bone, in Jesus Christ, the God of Christmastide, continues in our midst. God is to be found in the people who ran to help in George Square, who ran towards the mayhem. God is to be found in the efforts of the people who staff our emergency services. God is to be found in every act of compassion and of solidarity and of love, in every tear that is shed, in every moment of heart-rending grief, in the long winter of numbness and of pain and of loss. God is there, whether we can find it in us to find God there or not, or to believe that God is there or not. God is there to take our anger, our disbelief, our forsakenness, our outrage that the world is like this, if that is all we can do. And often it is all we can do, as the psalmists often show us: Why stand so far off, O Lord… God is there in our efforts to reduce the chances of such a thing ever happening again in our city. And God will be there when we fail and other, as yet unforeseen, accidents happen. God is there. God is here. God is God with us.
“God is God with us. Many people of faith, and not only Christians, experience this to be true, even, maybe even especially, in the darkest times of life. We hope and pray that this service, in a loving if inevitably small way, and in the midst of suffering and heartbreak, may help to keep that perspective alive and visible, whilst fully realising that for those whose lives were torn apart in our city centre a year ago the grief and the loss and the questioning will continue.”
The full sermon preached by Bishop Gregor at the service can be read here, and a reflection by Bishop Gregor on the tragedy a year on in The Herald newspaper can be read here.
– See more at: http://www.scotland.anglican.org/glasgow-remembers-bishop-glasgow-galloway-speaks-anniversary-service-bin-lorry-tragedy/#sthash.wWfoGubc.dpuf
