The waiting over, the celebrations begun - and, it feels like, ended. Christmas is sooooo past now; we are into the new year, we are faced with putting away all the decorations, we are trying to lose the weight we have just put on, we have packed up the carol books....
But if Christmas means anything more than just a happy holiday, a lot to eat and some pretty pictures (to say nothing of the sheer delight of the nativity play)it mustn't be something we can pack away. Christmas is about birth; birth is about beginning; beginning implies continuity. And so, how do we continue? How to we go on with Christmas, or the implications of Christmas.
Perhaps we can do it through the other dominant theme this week; a new year's resolution. Perhaps we can resolve to do better, to live differently, to be better people.
Except - is that what the birth is about? Is that what we have been waiting for - a chance to try and get it right (again) and discover (again) that we can't do it?
Or might we have been waiting for something else? Might we dare to believe that the meaning we are offered in the birth is that it is not all down to us, that we are not the centre of the universe, nor the only ones who are responsible, nor is our strength all there is?
It's a new year, it's the Christmas season, it's the time when the promise "God with us" is offered anew.
I wonder if I can trust it? I wonder if you can? Might we do it together?