Thursday 27 December 2012

Intimacy

Intimacy  between John the apostle and Jesus led to an awareness of resurrection. It was John who saw the significance of empty tomb and the grave clothes tidied away. For John it was enough, he was able to read the signs of life in the middle of death. As we look at the empty hopes that scatter our day and cling to the grave clothes of the past we might ask John, the apostle of love to help us to draw eternal life from the tombs of our disappointments.

Tuesday 25 December 2012

Christmas

The whole point of christmas is presence: the desire that God has to be with people and to identify with creation. Intimacy is the mood of christmas. God comes close to us despite the mess and compromises we make of life. The challenge of christmas is to see beyond the frailty we try to hide from because that frailty is precisely the place where God comes to meet us. Like Adam and Eve we try to hide behind the fig leaves of success and miss the intimacy and trust that awaits in vulnerability and dependence. It is in the poor unstable parts of our lives that God awaits us this christmas.