Topic: Conversion

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.

Lent is a recurring reminder of the fragility of our discipleship in the face of tempting shortcuts and instant gratifications.

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.

History will end with the unbridled joy of a loving shepherd who celebrates the neighbourhood filling up with dead losers who don’t deserve to be there.

When we’re met by the living Christ, we’re not invited to simply change our opinions about some things in life, and go on as we have before. We’re called, we’re changed, we’re transformed from top to bottom, from the inside out. Life can never be the same again.

Jesus calls us in a new direction, full of strangers and dangers and turmoil and wonder. And in that vision of a new way, a new future leaping with silvery hope, we will find the courage to leave everything.

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.

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.

Joseph models a courageous willingness to be stripped of his sense of entitlement that he might become all God wanted him to be.

The ‘death of the self’ in baptism, modelled in Jesus, enables us to live openly and generously instead of fearfully and defensively.

Jesus probably won’t meet our expectations, but will instead set out to convert our expectations and lead us into a new world that exceeds anything we could have expected.