Just after celebrating Christmas, the birth and revelation of Jesus, it's appropriate to begin listening to, or reading, the New Testament Letter to the Hebrews. For it starts with the clear message that this Jesus is God's final and definitive word to our world. After all the ways in which God had made Himself known to His people (and continues to make Himself known today), it is Jesus who is God's fullest sharing of Himself, His fullest expression of what He wants to say to His world. This is why we always need to go to Jesus, to become familiar with Him, His ways, His thoughts and desires, His life. Not simply to know about Him, with a kind of book-knowledge, but know Him with our hearts.

Yet, we still seem to long for some 'special' revelation, some miracle, some sign from God. At times like at the turn of the century, a few years ago, or in troubled and disturbed times, people start asking for or expecting special messages. But, the coming of Jesus on earth has already ushered in "the final age": the signs and the messages are there already in the person and life and work of Jesus, while He lived in the Holy Land and as He lives now in His people, in His body which is the Christian community. Maybe the biggest scandal of Christianity today is that our own eyes and ears are blinded and deafened by our sins, as well as the eyes and ears of the people to whom, in the name and person of Jesus, we should be demonstrating God's love.