I confess to emotions of pride and joy as the Tonbridge Angels captain, Jerrome Sobers (all 6’ 4” of him), walked out onto the pitch with my boys at the cup game against Bromley.

He did wonder aloud to me beforehand how he was going to stoop down and hold Amos’ two year old hand.

I watched the filming of it a few days later and noticed that as they walked on to the pitch the referee and his assistants strode ahead with the Bromley captain and team keeping with them, pace for pace. Then, all of a sudden, they stopped and waited for Tonbridge Angels to catch up with them! We were miles behind (unlike in the game where we matched them man for man) because Amos’ little legs struggled to keep up and Jerrome had slowed down to his pace.

At Christmas Christians celebrate the fact that God accommodated himself to our pace. God held humanity’s hand, as it were, and became like us through his son Jesus so that we could understand a little more clearly who God is and what God is like.

Let’s be honest, there are many troubling and distasteful passages in the Bible. Sadly, I think they are often taken out of context and sequence. For me, the Bible is a gradual revealing of God to humanity. The flashy theological phrase for this is “progressive revelation”. It’s the idea that God comes closer to us as the Bible story unfolds. Interestingly, the closer God comes to us and the more humanity understands God the less violent the Bible becomes… It seems that as humanity understands God we begin to understand that we have a God of love, peace and justice, but not revenge (that is massively different to justice).

And this closeness comes to its culmination in the person of Jesus. When Jesus is in his thirties one of his disciples and best mates, Philip, asks him to show them God the Father as that will be enough to satisfy them. Jesus says: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9)

If we want to know what God is like we should look first and foremost at the Jesus of the gospels. There we find the Son of God who is on the side of the poor and oppressed, hates religious obstacles, elevates women, welcomes the outcast, breaks down racial barriers and places children at the centre of God’s kingdom.

I’m so glad God slowed down to our pace and accommodated himself to our level of understanding aren’t you?

Yours because of Jesus – Neil.