On the twelfth day of Christmas

A wonderful confirmation service on a glorious sunny morning at Hambleden for Epiphany — and the end of Maggi Dawn’s Beginnings and Endings (and what happens in between) which I've reading almost daily since 1 December. It’s been a very engaging way to stay focussed at a time of year I usually rather lose the script. This book gives a short scripturally based reflection for every day from the beginning of Advent to twelfth night. I have missed two or three days, but it’s easy to catch-up, and I've very much valued the overview, and some of the particular ideas. There’s a very strong biblical base, including the big picture alongside some analysis of particular parts of the story and context. This book puts you back in the place people were in before they did Christmas in an over-familiar way. Tracking through the tale from the very beginning stage by stage has been very enriching.

As Matthew tells the story it’s not a neatly wrapped-up ending, but a scene of urgent and slightly panicky journey making. Both the magi and the holy family are warned not to go back the way they came, and they depart from Bethlehem in different directions.... the end of the nativity story, then, marks the beginning of two new journeys into the unknown — two journeys in which the plans are changed at the last minute and departure is suddenly made more urgent.
The idea that we cannot go back the way we have come is an important spiritual metaphor: having encountered the Christ-child, we can never just go back. Even if we return to the same life we find that it has somehow changed...
For those who like the idea that the gospel gives us certainty — clear and applicable truths that we can solidly depend upon — this ending of the birth narratives is an uncomfortable disruption. The only certainty here is the promise of uncertainty. But it is an uncertainty that is full of hope, for it is also the promise of new beginnings.

My only qualification to this enthusiastic endorsement is to point out that you can’t exactly read it in the way it’s designed to be used for another 11 months — but Advent and Christmas will, almost certainly, be back next year...