Church Seasons: Epiphany

There are twelve days between Christmas and Epiphany, which is where we get the song, "The Twelve Days of Christmas"...although I have no idea what I would do with six geese a-laying and twelve drummers drumming just sounds loud.  There is a connection between Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany.  We spend four weeks preparing for the birth of the One with promise dancing in his eyes.  We spend four weeks making room and ready for God to enter into our lives anew and afresh.  We bask in the silent, holy night of Christmas.  Then the next day, we pack every thing up, put the tree back in the attic, try to get the tinsel out of our carpet fibers, and start making New Years Resolutions.  But it wasn't always that way,  Many people can remember NOT putting their tree up until Christmas Eve and the tree would stay up until Epiphany.  I am not suggesting we go back to those 'good ole days'.  What I am suggesting is maybe we find ways to keep basking in the glow of Christmas.  There is no way one hour on Christmas Eve helps us fully explore the mystery of God entering our world.  There is no way that one day, December 25, with its often frenzied opening of packages and racing to family events, helps saturate us with the truth that God's love is no longer distant or disinterested in us.  God's love comes into a smelly stable.  God's love breaks forth in a barn.  God's love is scene only by a couple (Mary and Joseph) who never would have been lifted up as an ideal marriage and some shepherds considered thieves.  It takes more than one day, it takes more than twelve day, it takes a lifetime of returning to this season to help us begin to grasp the scandal of Christmas.  The scandal that God is a weak force, one whose love really does make all the difference, but we keep clinging to 'might makes right' and 'knowledge is power'.  The scandal that God is willing to walk among us in the flesh.  The scandal that God faces death.  Or as C.S. Lewis once said, God coming in Jesus is the 'intolerable compliment,' because suddenly faith is not only about intellectual assent, faith is living, breathing, sweating, eating, and sharing all the beauty and brokenness of life in the form of Jesus the Christ.  

I need twelve days to let that soak and saturate my life.  I need to keep standing in that divine light.  I need to keep lighting the candles of hope, peace, joy, and love as well as the culmination of those lights in Christ, to see how God is moving now as 2015 dwindles and 2016 dawns around me.  The season of Christmas into Epiphany is a bridge.  We sit with the profound question, what difference does it make right here and now that God is still willing to come into this world and move into my neighborhood?  What difference is that going to make in my life now and in the year to come?  For me, that truth keeps challenging me to be more loving, especially toward people who frustrate me.  For me, that truth keeps pushing me to delve deeper into where I sense God right now and where might I be missing God.  I need the light of Advent, Christmas and Epiphany, especially since all around me in nature the night is longer.  Sure, the winter equinox has occurred, but it takes awhile for that event to be fully realized.  The same is true for Christmas and Epiphany, God entering in takes awhile.

So this year, as we round the corner to Advent, I encourage you to do a few things:

1.  When you write your Christmas cards, maybe choose one of the words of advent, "Hope," "Peace," "Joy," or "Love" and write that in the card.  Or when shopping asking which of those words would you most want to give to the person you are trying to find something for?  How might those words be tangible in your relationships in this season.

2.  Keep celebrating Christmas and the truth of God's love entering in long after the stores put the items on clearance.  God's love breaking into our world is way too beautiful and bright for us to stop basking in that grace on December 26th.

3.  Keep a journal of ways you sense God.  What new insights roam around?  What new directions are you longing to God?  Where do you need a renewed sense of hope, peace, joy, or love?

I pray that as we move through these seasons this year, you will sense more than a trace of God's amazing grace and that grace will last all of 2016.

Blessings ~