This is what the Christmas clean up looked like at my house yesterday. The dog in the corner is not part of the decorations. He is also not amused by all the goings on.
Today is Epiphany, the day after the Twelfth Day of Christmas (and also a very difficult word to type and spell.)
The Christmas season is officially over.
Disclaimer: for some reason, I thought that today was the Twelfth Day of Christmas. But then I checked with Mr. Google, who has access to all calendars, and I realized that I was wrong. So this entry is a little confuddled, because I started with the notion that today was the Twelfth Day of Christmas, the last day of the season, and that Epiphany was tomorrow.
Not that it really matters.
If you’ve read this far, thank you.
Anyway.
In either case, the holidays (as we usually think about them in Western culture) are done. The Christmas and the New Year’s: all kaput. It’s time to buy the on-sale storage boxes and pack up the ornaments and decorations. It’s probably too late to hunt for a couple of new ones at the 70 percent off sales that hit the day after Christmas. Get those lights down if yours are still up, though, because you don’t want to be the last house on the block with outdoor decorations. That blow up Santa looks pretty sad after the first of the year. Wrap up the lights carefully so you can use them again next year with a minimum of untangling angst.
Because it’s over.
Unless it’s not.
It is Epiphany, after all.
Walter Brueggemann’s little devotional book Celebrating Abundance was a gift for me this Advent. But the book didn’t end on Christmas Day. There were also passages for the twelve days after Christmas, from the 26th through yesterday, January 5, which was the twelfth day of Christmas. Because even though our culture slams the door on Christmas on the morning of December 26th, in the traditional church calendar, Christmas Day was just the beginning of the Christmas season. There were still days and days for reflection and celebration.
Today, though, at long last, the Christmas season draws to an end with Epiphany, sometimes known as “Three Kings Day,” the day when tradition tells us that the Magi arrived and brought Jesus their gifts.
I confess that “epiphany” is one of my favorite words. I just love a good epiphany. It’s a moment when something in me suddenly shifts, and I see it and understand it in a new way. It’s “an illuminating discovery, realization or disclosure” and is often “simple and striking,” according to the dictionary. I’m not exactly sure how that definition of Epiphany connects with the arrival of the Magi. Maybe their presence helped Mary see her baby in a new way. Nevertheless, it’s a beautiful time for celebration, a day that might give us a chance to experience some kind of new holy in our lives, too.
But back to yesterday.
Brueggemann’s theme for his Twelfth Day of Christmas devotional, the final selection in the book, was “pondering.” He writes, “To ponder is to hold an idea that keeps on, over and over and over. Mother Mary did that. She pondered ‘all these words,’” which included Gabriel’s announcement, Joseph’s surprisingly gracious acceptance of the news, the shepherds, and the song of the angels.
Brueggemann reminds us on the Twelfth Day of Christmas that it would be good to imitate Mary in this way: pondering the Christmas story, holding it close, remembering it often, even as the days roll by. He says, “We will linger there, confident that the sum of these events yields a new world. We will keep them in our hearts as she did, the place where we make new resolves, run fresh risks, and embrace new lives. From this twelfth day, we linger there for many more days to come. Amen”
That’s it, I think. That’s my epiphany for this Epiphany day: “To linger there for many more days to come.”
Because even though the holidays are over, and the Christmas season is finished for another year, Jesus was born and lived and is somehow alive with us still and is continually being born in our world, in our lives, in infinite ways everyday. Everyday there are new opportunities to trust, to take chances, to step out into a world that is alight with his presence, one that is fresh with possibility, with wonders that have not yet been but that somehow will be because of a God who loves us. God loves us. God loves us.
All of us. Top to bottom. High and low. God loves you. God loves me. Even on my most ordinary days. Especially on my most ordinary days. I think my honest prayer for the year is that I allow this truth to capture me in a new way, in a way that is deeper and more profound than I have ever known. It’s a lot to ask, but it’s possible. Of course it’s possible. Anything is possible at Christmas.
Happy day after the Twelfth Day of Christmas. Happy Epiphany, friends. Happy days that go on forever, a Christmas celebration that never ends.
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