Epiphany

Today, 6th January, is the day when we celebrate Epiphany: the visit of the Magi to Jesus. It's also traditionally the day when we take down Christmas decorations. It's the end of Christmastide, and the beginning (depending on your tradition - if you're a Christian) either of Ordinary Time or of the season of Epiphany. It tends, however, to feel much more like an end than a beginning. The Christmas lights are turned off; the baubles put away; the tree goes either back in the attic or to be chopped up for composting. The house feels feels bigger and emptier and somehow much more bare than it did before Christmas. And Ordinary Time (which comes from the same Latin root as "ordinal" - the numbers like first, second, third) feels like just counting off the weeks and, well, ordinary. In some traditions the Christmas crib is left for a while longer, and figures of three kings with gold, frankincense and myrrh are placed next to the infant Jesus. But that's the end of the Christmas story - bar the slaughter of the innocents (which is another story that never seems to make it into children's Bibles).

Why does this feel so much like an ending? In the early years of Christianity, as it spread, it made good sense to co-opt existing festivals. As people who celebrated a mid-winter festival became Christians, it was helpful to be able to say "You already know that in the middle of winter, something amazing happens: the days begin to get longer again. You talk about this using the language of birth, of newness. The Good News is that you're right! What you've been grasping at is the truth, that Jesus was born, and that the midwinter of your sin and shame is melting away." But this was part of a cycle (you just wait until the Spring of Resurrection), whereas now I think that we tend to see our festivals as discrete parcels of time. Never mind that in consumer culture the bulk of the festival happens before the event, rather than after; too many centuries of clocks have made us not very good at thinking of continuous time. We forget that the events we celebrate: births and birthdays, achievements, victories and memorials, are milestones, not destinations. They mark where we are on a journey; they're not an end in themselves, which we then reluctantly abandon to move on to the next distant target.

So I hope that Epiphany, for you and for me, is not the start of something, but the continuation of something. The Magi brought gifts which referred to Jesus' adult roles as king, priest and sacrifice. They were, in fact, for life, not just for Christmas. I hope your Christmas has been good. But I also hope that it is the kind which leads to many days of Ordinary goodness.