Road (December)

The conclusions to the Christmas stories are rarely given much attention come December. The magi, for example, exit the scene “by another road”. Our imaginations arrive “westward leading, still proceeding”, the escape via a back road an anticlimax. Yet the microcosm of Matthew 2:12 says we know the road means safe passage out, the sages will not meet untimely death at the hands of a tyrant’s secret police. And not only have their gifts been reciprocated already, they have met the truth of life, death and glory. They travel by another road changed forever, into a future never before imagined.