A rich man climbs a tree to see over a crowd, and Jesus invites himself to dinner — reversing the direction of the invitation. What follows is restitution nobody demanded, offered at a level exceeding what the law required.

Jesus says follow me to a tax collector, and Matthew’s first act as a disciple is to fill his house with his own circle. Nobody was cleaned up first — and Jesus tells the religious professionals watching to go and learn what mercy means.

A reign ends, and that is when the vision comes. Dr. James Smith III preaches Isaiah 6 on a sequence the year-end usually reverses: seeing, then undoing, then cleansing, and only then “here am I, send me.”

Pastor Adam opens Christmas Eve with a question rather than a text: when did it start feeling like Christmas? The manger is the answer precisely because it resists atmosphere — a feeding trough is not evocative, it is simply what was available.

The unclean spirit makes the most theologically accurate statement in the chapter — I know who you are, the Holy One of God — and Jesus silences it. Correct information about Jesus turns out not to be the same thing as relationship with him.

The disciples are in the storm because they were told to go there. Pastor Adam notes that what terrified them was the answer arriving unrecognisable, and that when Peter sank nothing had changed in the conditions — only in where he was looking.

Harry Wilson sets two passages side by side: Jesus says “come and see” to two disciples, and Mary’s household says it back to him at a grave. Between them sits a man weeping ten minutes before raising the dead, with no practical reason to cry.

Four men dig through a roof to lower a paralysed friend in, and the text says Jesus saw *their* faith. Then he forgives sins rather than legs — and the healing that follows is offered as evidence for the harder claim rather than as the main event.

Rondi Pogue starts generously: the crowd follows Jesus because they have seen him heal people, which is not a pure motive, and he feeds them anyway. The question he asks Philip was never for information — Jesus asks questions to teach.