29 December 2025
by wpAdmin
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I know it is a bit too late to be recommending Advent reading for this year. The liturgical season ends on Christmas Eve and starts four Sundays before that (30th November this year and 29th November in 2026). However, I didn’t want to recommend the book Jane and I used for our Advent reflections until we finished it and, after that, there was no urgency.
The short book we used was God With Us by J John, first published in 2014 and available from his website. John is an excellent speaker and his writing matches up. Each day he reflects on a character from the nativity story, as laid out in the Bible – no innkeeper, third angel or second sheep here. Most are the ones you would expect, like Joseph (two entries) and Mary (four entries) but he also includes some of the less often mentioned characters (like Simeon and Anna – one shared entry), and some of the villains (eg. Herod).
He even gives an entry on “The Midwife”, acknowledging that although such a figure is not mentioned, it is highly likely there was some assistance from someone with such expertise. See the Psephizo blog for several articles that argue persuasively for not sticking with the old “inn” translation but understanding that there was was no space in the upstairs guest room (based on a typical house of the period), that Mary and Joseph were probably not destitute (although very few people in those days were anything like our modern standards of “rich”) and that they probably did benefit from a family welcome and Middle Eastern hospitality.
I’ve used the “major and minor” characters approach myself in other contexts and, when you start thinking about Christmas and Advent next year, I would happily recommend John’s book as a good resource for most readers.
