John’s gospel doesn’t begin with the birth of Jesus. There are no stories of controversial conceptions, angelic messengers, or various unexpected visitors to be enjoyed. But he does give us a beautiful, poetic account of Jesus’ identity and the significance of his coming, describing Jesus as the God who chose to ’tabernacle amongst us’. I believe this brief and simple phase communicates the same essential message that the nativities of Matthew and Luke are trying to get across. I also believe that if we meditate on this line from John, we might appreciate those classic Christmas stories afresh…

The season of Lent remembers Jesus’ time in the wilderness. Christians often mark the season by giving up something as a means of recalling and identifying with the 40 day long fast that Jesus undertook whilst in the desert. But Lent itself isn’t actually about fasting…

There is a beautiful linguistic quirk in the Bible that I’ve been mulling over for a while now. It has to do with the continual use of subtle directional language. It turns out this is all over the canon but is often subtle and so not always linked up and fully appreciated. The more I’ve followed this grammatical thread through the scriptures the more intriguing, pervasive and profound it has become.

When Jesus first called the disciples into leadership, he didn’t tell them to just go and make disciples in some abstract, general, permission giving way. Neither did he wait for them to come to him and ask to be sent. Instead he initiated the invite and then…

Simeon is awesome! He only makes a brief cameo in Luke’s gospel but he still manages to leave a big impression! For a start, he seems to have Yoda like levels of spirituality…

What Zechariah sings here is nothing short of the gospel itself. At long last Yahweh has come to redeem his people. The exile is completely over. Their shame is being rolled away. The prophecies spoken over the house of David about a future Messiah are being fulfilled…

The prophetic song that Luke attributes to Mary is nothing short of remarkable! It contains so much about the nature of God and His heart for mankind. It celebrates the salvation plan that has been unfolding for centuries. And it points towards the kind of Messiah Jesus will be…

I find this brief anecdote delightful and fascinating! Mary rocks up at Elizabeth’s house and before they’ve gotten further than “hello” John the not-yet-born-but-will-grow-up-to-be Baptist starts doing a joyful jig. As he does so Elizabeth, under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, suddenly realises and starts shouting…

How many times have you felt this way about your relationship with God. He’s just silent. Maybe you’ve sat there, watching, waiting, becoming increasingly desperate. Maybe you’ve reached the point of questioning if what you had hoped for were really true. Maybe you’ve felt completely alone, or have completely isolated yourself…

I generally think I’m quite good at serving people. But then I read this story and think, “no way!”. I’m not prepared to do that! I like my status, I like my dignity and I don’t like feet! Yet Jesus is desperately serious and completely clear about this…

Do you ever feel sorry for Judas? I do! I sometimes feel he gets a bit of a bad rap. All he really did was get tempted in the same way we all do… it’s just that when he gave into temptation there were earth shattering consequences...

Does my following Jesus look like the melee of other followers? If he observed me in the midst of a crowd of other Christians would he see just another one of the many, whom he loves and died for, but who is missing the fullness of the Kingdom. Or would he see in me something that would cause him to smile?

Many of us are familiar with the story of Jesus clearing the temple. Its common to use it as a challenge to whether our churches and Christianity as a whole has sold out to commercialism. But the cursing of the fig tree is a bit more bizarre. What was going on here?

It turns out I like comfort. Actually I’ve always known that. I’m a creature of habit and routine. I like things the way I like them. And I wouldn’t describe myself as a particularly out-there or radical person. But I’ve discovered over lent my comfort loving runs deeper than that…

I find the way Luke wraps up his telling of the nativity story fascinating. He essentially brings this epic tail crashing back to earth and leaves it in the mundanity of normal life…

Waiting for something which is entirely out of your control can be so hard. We like to control things, we like to make things happen. And when we’re powerless to change or affect our circumstances we can be quick to become disheartened and disillusioned…

It sometimes feels like this part of Matthew's nativity story plays out a little like the original Christmas pantomime: Herod, as the archetypal panto villain (minus the drag), is unwittingly told of Jesus’ birth by the Magi. In an attempt to preserve his evil reign he hatches a cunning plan to have the baby Jesus killed (boo hiss!).

God didn’t want Jesus' birth to be a celebration reserved for the elite, the middle-classes, or the educated. Quite the opposite. The only people he chooses to publicly announce the moment too, via an enormous choir of angels no less, were the societal rejects.

I find the little detail that “Joseph was a righteous man” one of the biggest understatements in the Bible! At the encouragement of God he puts himself in an unenviable situation! He marries Mary, a girl who is essentially pregnant with someone else's child, in a culture where such a union would be shrouded by rumour and shame.

I love how Mary reacts to her inclusion in God's story. This random, insignificant, mostly uneducated young girl responds to God's message that she would be put in the incredibly awkward position of a pre-marital pregnancy with the faith-filled words “I am the Lord’s servant…”

It's that magical time of year… you’re stressed up to your eyeballs with planning a million and one Christmas events. You’re desperately trying to find the festive cheer and end the term well but at the same time you can’t wait to just get the next couple of weeks out the way and start your own holiday…

I've been thinking a lot about size and perspective at the start of this new academic year. This year we’re rebuilding our student ministry almost from scratch with just a handful. Its easy in situations like this to be discouraged. But I keep returning to one glorious truth: God loves small things…