Christmas Eve turns on a small word used twice in verse 5: Joseph registers with Mary, who is with child. Pastor Adam makes “with” the whole message — and is honest that he is currently surrounded by prayers that are not being answered.

Gabriel appears to exactly three people in scripture, and the first was Daniel — mid-prayer, pleading for his people. Pastor Harry reads the annunciation as the answer to a prayer already prayed, and lands on Mary’s reply: favoured one, and servant.

No angels this week — just a poor young couple doing what the law required. Pastor Adam makes the ordinariness the subject, and points out that the King of Glory arrived at his own temple and nobody noticed except two people who had been waiting.

A father takes out a newspaper advertisement for his estranged son — all is forgiven — and eight hundred young men named Paco come to the meeting place. Elliott Stearns takes Hemingway’s story, and the life behind it, into what a father actually supplies.

Pastor Jim Smith brings a seed packet to the pulpit and turns the parable of the sower from a diagnosis into a question he has asked students for seventeen years: what quality and depth of soil do you want to offer?

Luke 24:28-35 and the moment of recognition at the breaking… read more

The road to Emmaus: two people walking away from Jerusalem… read more

Luke 1:26-38 and Mary’s answer: let it be to me… read more

Mary’s Magnificat in Luke 1, from a preacher who opens… read more