(A 2010 reflection on New Year's and manifesting hope and Christ's love to others)
Celebration, excitement, noisemaking - It’s how we bring in
a new year! I wonder… why do we
celebrate the new year with such gusto worldwide, like a birthday but on a
grand scale? The optimist in me hopes it
doesn’t just give folks a good excuse to have a party. Maybe we celebrate because we are given a
fresh year full of potential and mystery.
What will happen is anyone’s guess.
A new year full of possibilities, a fresh slate, a blank calendar to
begin again and to fill in. I think
that’s why we make New Year’s resolutions.
It seems a natural time to both reflect back on our year and to look
forward and then to take what steps we can to make a future we hope for a
reality.
As we find ourselves at the beginning of a calendar year,
into winter, and just past the shortest day of the year with days that will
gradually grow longer, we find ourselves in a new season of our liturgical
calendar as well. Just as we have
growing light in our days, the light of Christ drew near through Advent, broke
into our world and shone around us during the 12 Days of Christmas and this
week we enter the season after the Epiphany.
A season that will last up until Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent.
Epiphany means appearance or manifestation, especially of a
divine being. The Epiphany, celebrated on January 6th celebrates the fact that
Christ’s divine nature was made manifest to the Magi or wise men, and since
they traveled from a distant country they were not Jewish, so even at the beginning
of his life, the Christ Child is revealed to gentiles, signifying that his
appearing as “God with us” is meant for us all, not for a select few.
As we move into Epiphany and hear stories of times in which
Christ’s divine nature was made manifest to us such as his baptism or at the
wedding at Cana and find ourselves at the start of a new
year we can think about Christ made manifest.
We can take note that there are many people around us – family, friends,
neighbors, co-workers, acquaintances, even strangers, perhaps most especially
strangers, who need Christ to be made manifest in their lives. They may be troubled, anxious, sick, hurting,
or perhaps full of questions or even joyful, but somehow are in need of
Christ’s love, kindness, reconciliation, compassion, peace, or hope. I believe Christ is made manifest through us
as individuals as well as through the many ministries of the faith community
that is Trinity all the time. Each time
someone starts cancer treatment and receives a chemo cap, for each person
seeking sobriety who discovers a local meeting, for each person served a meal
at St. Andrew’s, and in many, many ways.
So now is a time to reflect on how God has been at work through us, and
to think about the ways we can continue to make Christ manifest to others.
Epiphany Blessings and Happy New Year!
Lori+
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