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,”…

There are several interesting stories associated with Leonardo Da Vinci’s painting of ‘The Last Supper’, here is one of them: Around the time Leonardo started to paint this painting he had an enemy who also painted. He despised him after having had a bitter argument with him. When he got to paint the face of…

Dr Felix Ruh, a Jewish doctor, working in Paris was a co-worker of Louis Pasteur.  His granddaughter had died of black diphtheria, so he vowed he would find out more about what had killed her. He locked himself in his laboratory for days and emerged with a fierce determination to prove, with his colleague Louis…

As we walked (car out of action!) across the  Morrison’s (other supermarkets are available but not so close to home!) car park, me pulling a trolley bag containing the heavier items and him with a full shopping bag, he suddenly stopped, pulled out a second bag and shared the groceries between the bags. With one…