Advent is all about beginnings. It's the beginning of the church year, and its themes include the beginning of creation, the beginning of Christianity and the beginning of the new heavens and the new earth. Most of these beginnings are born out of the ending of something else - an old era giving way to a new one. These beginnings and endings are on a cosmic scale, but most of what happens in life happens 'in between'.

Our everyday lives are full of small-scale beginnings and endings - births, deaths, marriages, careers, house moves and so on. How do the grand-scale beginnings and endings of Advent help to guide us as we seek to follow Jesus in the 21st century? This book reflects on the stories of six groups of people and individual characters from the Bible; each provides a focus in some way for the idea of beginnings and endings, and each gives us a glimpse into - and draws ancient wisdom from - the human experience that happened in between.