Sharing the Gift
Now that you’ve kindled the flame of God’s love at Christmastime, how will you carry it out into the world?
That’s the question we ask ourselves in the season of Epiphany. Of course, it’s early January so perhaps you’ve been thinking about new year’s resolutions or new practices of self-care or even “lifehacks” to help you achieve all the things you hope to tackle. These are fine things to think about, but God calls us to a deeper question:
Now that you have beheld the child in the manger and heard the resonant verses of Silent Night, now that you have feasted and celebrated, now that you have rested and been restored, how will you carry the gift you’ve been given out into the world that hungers for a word of God’s life-giving love?
Epiphany (January 6) is a principal feast of the church that begins a season of sharing the gift of the incarnation with the whole world. It’s a holiday that’s older than Christmas itself, a day when the earliest Christians first celebrated the coming of Christ. Epiphany begins a season where we learn to seek and share the love of Christ at our wedding feasts, within our relationships and through our engagement with the world.
Quoting Howard Thurman, Bishop Curry’s Christmas message tells us everything we need to know about our vocation in Epiphany and beyond: “When the song of the angels is stilled, when the star in the sky is gone, when the kings and princes are at home, when the shepherds are back with their flocks, then the work of Christmas begins. To find the lost, to heal the broken, to feed the hungry, to release the prisoner, to rebuild the nations, to bring peace among others, to make music in the heart.”
In this season of Epiphany, may we seek and find the gift of Christ in the wonderful world God has made.
