THE Rev. Matthew Hunter, associate priest at Hexham Abbey, comments on Luke 2 v 1 - 14.

During advent, Christians reflect upon the incarnation, God’s coming among us – literally Emmanuel, ‘God, with us’ – in the person of Jesus, and look forward to his return.

In between a distant past and an unspecified future, we seek to respond to the possibilities of the present, and look to the Bible for guidance.

The gospels also provide a spectrum of times and response: the earliest anticipations of the Good News; the sometimes surprising reality of the Way; the development of traditions surrounding Jesus; the wider relevance of this story for the world.

This week, we focus on the fourth of these. The Bible often tells the same story twice (or more) with unabashed alacrity. Did you know, for example, that there are two relatively different creation accounts? Or two strands to the story of Noah’s Ark?

Perhaps you did, and of course, this applies to the Christmas story – that we get a divergence of detail in Matthew and Luke.

Matthew, for example, has those wise personages from the East following their star, and Luke the shepherds and angels. It’s also generally said of Luke’s gospel that his Good News is for the whole world, absolutely everyone; in modern parlance, he’s completely inclusive.

Almost immediately, and especially with the events of Pentecost, Christianity (as it came to be known) burst the bounds of its cultural context and spread throughout the Roman world and beyond.

Today, we live with that legacy of a faith which has adapted and yet retained its core message of God’s love in Christ. It’s a timeless gift to us all.