We’ve done it! We’ve made it through Advent, Christmas, New Years, and now Epiphany (the day, that is—the season continues for a few more weeks). The end of the year always feels so jam-packed with gatherings, shopping, cooking, and planning that we struggle to keep in step with the slow rhythms of the Church calendar and to allow ourselves to sit in the gift of it all one step at a time. For starters, it’s hard to slow ourselves down in Advent—to actually sit and anticipate and prepare our hearts for the coming of Christ. And with the way our culture hypes up Christmas, it can be hard to allow the significance of that day to truly wash over us. We’re then immediately surrounded by pressures to create New Year’s resolutions in order to better ourselves and make each year an improvement on the last. And for those of us who didn’t grow up celebrating the 12 days of Christmas, it’s tough to allow ourselves to wait 12 days before celebrating the arrival of the Magi at the birthplace of Christ on Epiphany!
It often feels like this season is a season of striving and working and busyness. But so many of the scriptures designated throughout this season speak not about our striving but rather about God’s striving and fighting on our behalf. Isaiah 2:4-5, for instance, was part of the Old Testament passage on the First Sunday of Advent. It reads, “He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide disputes for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the LORD.” Isaiah 52:12, from Christmas morning, states, “For you shall not go out in haste, and you shall not go in flight, for the LORD will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard.” And just this past Sunday, we read Psalm 89:18, “The LORD is our defense, the Holy One of Israel is our King.”
As this often-busy season comes to an end, I pray you allow yourself to take a moment to sit in the truths of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany. Our God is not a God who calls us to overwork ourselves. He is a God who calls us rest in the fulfilment of his promises just as Mary rested after the birth of Jesus. He is a God who calls us to come, as the Magi came, and sit in the presence of the Word. He is a God who foretold the birth of his Son, offered that same Son up for our sins, and has promised that His Son will return someday to free us for good. Let us rejoice in this God! Amen.
Tori