Things don’t always work out as we expect, writes the Right Reverend Chris Goldsmith, Bishop of St Germans.

They didn’t for Joseph. He didn’t expect to marry a pregnant woman. He didn’t expect pre-marital counselling from an angel! He didn’t expect to be transporting his heavily-pregnant wife over 80 miles to his old home town. And, having made one inconvenient journey, he certainly didn’t expect to be fleeing for his life to Egypt. 

I wonder, where did he get the money for such a long trip? We know that he and Mary were poor. So how did he buy the tools he would have needed to set up his business in Egypt?

Well, he didn’t expect the Magi either. Or their lavishly expensive gifts – gold, incense, myrrh – richly symbolic of kingship, holiness and priestly anointing but also valuable, portable and easily turned into cash.

Maybe not so impractical after all.

Each year we remember these mysterious and foreign late-comers to the Christmas story.

As well as inspiring our own gift-giving they are the first sign that the Christ child would not just be ‘the saviour to His people Israel’ but to the whole world and everyone in it, including you and me.

Perhaps it is a good job that God doesn’t always give us just what we expect. 

May this Christmas be for you one of answered prayers, good surprises and unlooked-for provision by our Father in heaven.