This week the Church marks the Twelfth Day of Christmas, or Epiphany. Epiphanies, like so much else in life, are in the eye of the beholder.We suddenly understand something and we have to allow it to sink in.
Last week we asked ourselves how we are to live in light of Christ's coming. Our after-Christmas experience will be dull without an Epiphany; if we haven't truly worshiped the Christ Child, then our Christmas will end entirely lack-luster.
This morning we heard Dan Forrest's marvelous setting of Howard Thurman's poem, "The Work of Christmas:" "[...] When the kings and princes are home,/When the shepherds are back with their flock,/The work of Christmas begins:/To find the lost, to heal the broken, [...] To make music in the heart."
Experiencing Christmas is thrilling, but it's also difficult and challenging. Think about the story in Matthew 2 and how Mary and Joseph and the baby had to get up and escape to Egypt.
Our assignment this week. our first work of Christmas, is listening. Let's listen to every person that speaks to us, really listen, and be a person who can bear all things in love and only answer if the Holy Spirit prompts us and gives us the words to say.
