The President of the Methodist Church has invited people to discover a "vulnerable God" in Jesus this Christmas.
The Reverend Dr Mark Wakelin, President of the Methodist Conference, said that the point of Christmas was God communicating with humans "when words are not adequate".
"How can we even try to talk of God when literal language so lets us down? God's answer is, of course, the 'self sending' – of a God who in Charles Wesley's words is, 'contracted to a span, incomprehensibly made man'," he says.
"What we can ever understand of God has to begin by taking account of God revealed in the person of Jesus Christ."
He said that faith was not so much about "assent to a philosophical or religious claim", but the need to "inhabit a story ... of human struggle and courage".
"Children get this much more easily than adults who want the whys and the wherefores of an extraordinary story which is far more than an odd biological claim on the universe," he says.
"Do I believe that Jesus is the Son of God? Of course, wonder of wonders, 'Let earth and heaven combine, angels and men agree, to praise in songs divine the incarnate deity.'
"I inhabit this ancient story and find it to be true. Wrapped in our clay we may not immediately recognise the creator of all things. But it is our life task, to discover a vulnerable God who is on a mission to finish the 'new creation' and is looking for followers."
