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.

One point this week: when do you stay, when do you fight, and when do you run? An angel gives Joseph two verbs and no explanation. Pastor Adam notes what gets missed — the escape was funded before it was ordered.

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.

The Magi came from the class Daniel was put in charge of six hundred years earlier — which makes the exile the hinge of the Christmas story. Pastor Adam opens a new series on the childhood of Jesus, and takes “they went home another way” literally.