Whatever the future may hold, in rough places AND in smooth, in dark valleys and on sunlit hillsides, the Lord is our shepherd, and will lead us finally to green pastures and still waters.
Like the Emmaus travellers, Jesus calls us to pay attention to what is happening in these strange times, to what makes our hearts burn within us, and so to be changed ready to live differently.
Jesus’s encounter with Thomas and the first disciples can show us a thing or two about living under lockdown and hoping for a miracle to save us.
As Woody Allen said, 90% of success is just showing up, and in the resurrection, Jesus really shows up!
Jesus leads the way towards a new experience of life that is so utterly alive that death is powerless to threaten, limit or constrain it.
The COVID-19 scare can reinforce our Lenten call to prepare our hearts by facing up to our mortality and the real limits of our control over the world.
The forgiveness encountered in Jesus is extravagant and all-inclusive, but those who determinedly reject and demonise the Spirit’s winds of change can cut off their own access to it.
The gift of tongues can be a valuable part of our private spirituality, but the needs of public worship require something more than the private intimacies of our spirituality.
Our generation is very good at identifying evils and calling them out, but if our hearts are not occupied by God’s love and mercy, the results can be disastrous.
Jesus calls us to unite as his body around his table, and if we come to the table without seeking that unity, we dishonour Jesus.
Jesus calls us to follow his lead in bringing healing, hope and positive leadership to others, and not to be too worried about anxious and vexatious criticism.
Jesus calls us to neither conservatism nor iconoclasm, but to a faithful reckoning with the gifts and the sins of the past as we welcome and adapt to the new.
Godly love and respect doesn’t prevent disagreements in the church community, but it should enable us to address them without having to call in the lawyers.
God’s people are called to generously share their gifts, but also to humbly receive the gifts that are offered to us from unexpected sources.
In the face of monumental devastation and suffering, God speaks a word, and the word becomes flesh.
When God is moving to do something new among us, it almost always seems scandalous, immoral and offensive to many, and is just as likely to involve those who are regarded as morally suspect.
The Christmas stories assure us that Jesus is the one who brings light into our darkness.
Faithful waiting for for the fulfilment of God’s promises can leave us feeling compromised and alienated in the world around us.
The coming kingdom culture confronts the world’s violence by redemptively suffering and absorbing it, not by reciprocating it with even greater violence.
The imminent arrival of God’s messiah asks each of us to take up the identity of witnesses who open the way for God to be known.