Weekly Reflection, Sunday, January 5, 2020
By: Amelia McDaniel
Tomorrow is the Feast of the Epiphany. Twelfth Night is another designation for the day. We are celebrating Jesus being revealed to the world as the Son of God – God made manifest with us. There are three stories that are associated with the day. One of them is the story of the Kings showing up to see Jesus and his kingship being revealed to them. Another is the story of John baptizing Jesus in the Jordan and Jesus being called out as the Son of God. And the third story is the Miracle of the Wedding Feast at Cana where Jesus in his abundance saves the day, turning water into wine.
In some cultures, Twelfth Night is a big celebration, as big as Christmas. Bigger for some because it is when the gifts of the season are exchanged. Probably for most of us, it will just register as a Monday or January 6. After the crush of the Christmas season and the ringing in of a new decade, it is understandable. Some of us will be happily packing lunches and sending our “friendly beasts” BACK. TO. SCHOOL. Some of us will be tucking away seasonal decorations. There may be exercise plans newly initiated. Our refrigerators may be full of better food choices. Life will be going on as usual, maybe a little bedraggled, but maybe with a renewed sense of order. Most likely it will be a mix of all those things together.
I think I am glad for this calmer observation of the day. But I wonder what it might look like to reframe all those ordinary happenings – kids going back to school, houses being tidied up, tending to these bodies we’ve been given – remembering that in all of it, Jesus is continually present and being revealed to us. And more than remembering Jesus’s constant presence with me, what might January 6 and beyond look like if I took the time to remember that I have been given gifts to share. I have been baptized into a new life. And that there is an abundance all around me that I can share. Jesus, please manifest in the abundance.
I doubt I will have the energy to make a grand celebration of The Feast of the Epiphany. But hopefully, in what I do, what I say, what I think aloud in my mind and in the silence of my heart, I will be able to see revealed, made true through life, Jesus manifested in my very midst.