Jesus came into the world to fill us with new life, and encourage us, and show us how to grow, so if we remain focussed on the light, letting it shine into our areas of darkness, then darkness will never have the last word.
We grow into the likeness of Christ as we model ourselves on him, and he is a model of growth rather than a model of static perfection.
God becomes human and brings into himself (reconciles to himself) in Jesus the full range of human emotional experience.
Understanding Mary as a god-bearer opens up new possibilities, for we can all be god-bearers, carrying God’s love and longing for justice into every place that we go.
In an us-and-them world, people hope to find a way to get God on their side, but Jesus confounds our expectations of God siding against others.
The refining fire made known in Jesus is not targeting “morality” issues, but our hatreds, hostilities and inhospitableness.
In the fact of the climate apocalypse, we hold on to our hope: hoping and working for the radical, impossible change that is necessary.
In a world increasingly divided between violent powers, Jesus leads a kingdom that is a radical peaceful challenge to both of them.
Only when the world models itself on the self-sacrificial love and mercy we have seen in Jesus will it be saved from the cycles of apocalyptic violence and chaos.
Every coin you are holding already belongs to God: every bitterness, every hurt, every disappointment. Do not hold a single one back.