‘Gentle Jesus, meek and mild’, so goes the opening lines of the hymn authored by Charles Wesley but is he? On any impartial reading of the gospels, the answer is ‘yes and no’. Last week, we saw vividly Jesus’ gentleness and compassion for the leper and his suffering. Who could forget his tender response to […]

In Mark 1:40-41, we read, “A man with leprosy came and knelt in front of Jesus, begging to be healed. ‘If you are willing, you can heal me and make me clean,’ he said. Moved with compassion, Jesus reached out and touched him. ‘I am willing,’ he said. ‘Be healed!’ (emphasis mine). Mark tells us Jesus wasn’t just […]

Right at the start of his gospel, Mark unequivocally makes the claim that Jesus is not only the “Christ”, or the “Messiah” but even more provocatively, He is the “Son of God”. The Messiah was understood by most Jews to be a powerful political leader who would deliver Israel from its oppressors but he would […]

Leanne and I have our son and his family living with us as they renovate a recently purchased house. So, we are living with and around a five-year-old, a two-year-old and an 11-week-old. It’s wonderful!! But we are regularly reminded of what it was like when we were a young family. The five-year-old gets distracted […]

For several months I’ve been ‘slow reading’ a book called God Walk. Around the time of Good Friday I reached chapter 12, ‘Walking as suffering’. It was really appropriate to consider Jesus’ walk along the Via Dolorosa—the way of suffering—to the cross (with Resurrection Sunday poking its head around the corner). But Jesus’ journey to […]