We have all had those annoying times where we are told that a parcel will be delivered or the person coming to fix a particular thing that has gone wrong will be arriving anytime between 8am – 8pm!! You know how it is, you can’t risk going out or perhaps even going to the toilet because you know if you do that will be the exact moment that it/they will turn up!! So, we wait, hoping and longing that it will be sooner rather than later. The disappointment when they don’t turn up at all is more than a little frustrating.

A birthday celebration. That’s what Christmas is all about. But is it accurate to say that Jesus has a birthday in the same sense that you or I do? Did life begin for Jesus with his first breath of Judean air? Unlike us, Jesus existed before his birth. In fact, Jesus existed before there was air to breathe, long before the world was born …

As great as the teaching of John the Baptist was, it was nothing compared to Jesus’ teaching. And how well John the Baptist understood his role and stuck to it. What amazing clarity of purpose.