Waiting at the local railway station this week, my attention was captured by a poster advertising a new film.  It read: ‘When you’re lost in the darkness, look for the light’. My mind went to one of the opening verses in John’s gospel, ‘The Word was the source of life, and this life brought light…

Psalm 91:2 ‘This I declare about the Lord: He alone is my refuge, my place of safety: He is my God and I trust Him.’ People often talk about their ‘Happy Place’. Their place of choice, where they enjoy being. Maybe their friends and family are there. Maybe they are doing their favourite thing. It’s…

Today, traditionally referred to as Twelfth Night, is the day many will take down their Christmas decorations for another year. I don’t know about you, but I always anticipate having a load of time between Christmas and New Year to catch up with friends and family etc and then it seems that in a blink…

Some weeks ago, I found my diary for 1974. The first entry recorded the watch night service during which we had prayed our way into the new year almost half a century ago. As a young Christian, I was so fired up. I had pestered my grandma for a Thomson’s chain reference Bible. It was…

Martin E Leckebusch has written some updated lyrics to the traditional carol ‘O Little town of Bethlehem’.  I offer them here as a meditation at this Christmas time remembering Ukraine and all other places suffering from wars and conflict. O West Bank town of Bethlehem, How still your victims lie; The grieving weep, deprived of…

Paul doesn’t give a narrative account of the birth of Jesus but he does refer to it in his letters. In Galatians 4:4-5 he writes,” When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we…

My third child, I’ll call him George, was the only one of my four to be born on his due date.  Even then, he couldn’t wait! Once he went on a school trip and bought me a jar of sweets as a present. When he got off the coach, he proudly offered me the empty…

Born in unhygienic conditions, even by the standards of Israel during the Roman Empire, in an unfamiliar region surrounded by strangers, in appearance just an ordinary baby boy, the salvation of the human race centred on Jesus. The prophet Isaiah gave four descriptions of the Messiah who would come, who we now recognise as Jesus:…

I visited a Hindu Temple for the first time this week with a party of eight year olds. We were met by a lovely older gentleman who, with great patience and gentleness, explained to the class that Hindus have many gods and goddesses, but thirty three were revered the most. The children were intrigued by…

It is said that one of the reasons that Da Vinci’s painting of ‘The Last Supper’ took four years to complete was that when it was almost finished, a friend commented to the artist that he found the painting incredibly moving – especially the silver cup on the table. “It was brilliant, beautiful!” he said,”…