Topic: Jesus

Following Jesus has nothing to do with trying to be good. His love and hope are gifts, rather than demands, and they free us to love and hope freely.

Jesus gives us an abundance of all that we need, and when we learn to trust that, we are set free from rivalry and possessiveness and enabled to share generously.

Meeting us on the road of despair, Jesus reveals to us that suffering and defeat are God’s means of bringing new life and hope.

Jesus died an apparent failure, but in his resurrection, the failure’s power over us is broken for ever.

Jesus calls us to believe that he is the resurrection and the life, not just in theory, but in relation to everything that is dead or dying within us.

Jesus subverts our concepts of sin and offers to open our eyes and free us from it all.

Our deepest thirst will never be satisfied by cautious morality and religious compliance, but it will be abundantly quenched when we drink deeply of the living water of joyous intimacy that Jesus pours out freely.

Although often dismissed as utopian nonsense, Jesus’s teachings about non-retaliation and love of enemies are the key to the salvation of the world.

Jesus did not come to be the ultimate sacrifice that would appease God, but to show us, once and for all, that God does not want sacrifices at all, but lives of love, mercy and compassion.

Baptism is a magnificent gift, far surpassing anything we could imagine or devise, for ultimately it is God’s chosen means of self giving to us.

Jesus is the Word – what God has to say – who reveals true humanity and illuminates our path to becoming fully and truly human.

In Joseph we see an impressive example of someone with the integrity and courage to embrace God’s new directions despite considerable personal cost.