incarnation

What does Christmas mean?

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Despite not preaching at Christmas services this year, for some reason I have found myself thinking about the meaning of Christmas more this year than most. To stimulate your thinking this Christmas Day, I simply offer two things—one ancient, the other modern, neither mine. The ancient focuses on the meaning of Christmas—or rather the incarnation—for … Continue Reading

Three Christmas Surprises

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Christmas is a time for celebration, for feasting and for relationships. But it is also a time for a mild engagement in iconoclasm, as we peel back the layers of accreted tradition and recover the origins of the Christmas gospel. In that spirit (and Spirit) I offer three Christmas surprises for you to unwrap at … Continue Reading

God’s gifts to us at Christmas

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It might seem like time to wish everyone ‘A Happy New Year’. But, contrary to our culture’s assumption that Christmas consists of the busyness of consumption and comes to both a climax and a full stop on Christmas Day, for Christians that is when Christmas starts, and we are still in the Christmas season—for another … Continue Reading

God and grief

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Tuesday evening. The phone rings. My brother’s voice. ‘Joe’s been killed.’ Three words that change the world. I didn’t know what to say. ‘I don’t know what to say.’ That’s it. Do not go gentle into that good night…Rage, rage against the dying of the light. So wrote Dylan Thomas about his father dying in old … Continue Reading