Along the banks of the Jordan river there was speculation about the strange preacher who was baptising people there. Who exactly was he? Was he maybe the longed-for Messiah? or one of the prophets expected to return just before the Messiah's appearance? The clear testimony of John the Baptist was that he was not one of these figures, but a "voice crying out in the desert, 'make straight the way of the Lord'." But this imagery too implied a kind of imperial arrival, preparing the way for a great king. Truly, the great king has indeed arrived, but who has noticed? People still look for a saviour, a messiah, a superman to solve the riddles of humanity and creation. Meanwhile, we've been celebrating Christmas, an event and occasion recognised, indeed, by most of our world but considered mainly as a holiday time, a children's time, a commercial business opportunity. But the person of Christ often gets studiously ignored, or even denied. And all the while speculation continues, about Bethlehem, about Magi and stars. We Christians are still celebrating this week the arrival of what people have longed for, and waited for, a saving Messiah. But do we ourselves appreciate the impact of His arrival? a child born in poverty in an obscure, unimportant place, not in a royal palace of a centre of power, yet who upset and unsettled people of importance, who turned expectations upside down ..... We believe He changed our world.