I have just looked at the clock, and realised in the quiet of my house this Christmas Eve, that the minutes have slipped past midnight unnoticed as I have been pondering my services for tomorrow morning. Unusually I am very chilled, my day has not been rushed with preparations, the evening service this evening was early, and the dinner was simple and enjoyable, and I find myself enveloped in a hallowed moment of peace and wonder.

This evening as I preached the wonder of the incarnation I focused on the prophets, and on John the Baptist preparing the way, noting that God is always at work ahead of us, preparing us and calling us into a re-creative future where we work with the divine flow and purpose to bring healing, wholeness, colour and flavour to a world that needs a holy touch.

Of course holy touches have happened all through time, and are revealed throughout his-story from the very beginning when the world was declared good, and when goodness visited again in the person of Jesus the Christ, revealing God with us to a world in need.

Those who follow are called to enter into that revelation, showing by our following and receiving of Christ that we too love mercy and desire justice, that we too prefer love over power and vulnerability over position, that we would go to the outcast and the stranger and call them beloved and friend, accepting that we and they carry within us that divine spark of goodness.

As I ponder this I wonder if sometimes the hardest person to show mercy to is ourselves, that if we could just come to love and value, to cherish and nurture the dark-side of ourselves, and to woo ourselves gently into the light that we might begin to enter truly and fully into the re-creative transformative living that Jesus calls us towards.

This incarnation story of God-life revealed in vulnerable human flesh quickly outgrows the manger and challenges us to do the same, tonight, as the Christ-candles are lit we are reminded of the divine spark within each one of us, and burning throughout creation, we are challenged to allow the Spirit to fan that spark to a flame afresh, perhaps I am looking for the Christ light to become reincarnate in me! That I may love justice, seek mercy and walk humbly ….. that I may take my place among those who are prepared to prepare the way….