“Well, so that is that.”
These are the words that begin W.H. Auden’s poem, For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio. It’s time to take down the tree and return the decorations and the crèche to their boxes for another year. There are still plenty of leftovers to eat, even though we no longer have the appetite for those rich foods because the Christmas feast, is, in Auden’s words, “already a fading memory” along with all the promises of the Christ Child.
There is some truth to this. Another Christmas is over and it’s time to get back to the reality of life as we know it. Here in Canada we are entering the coldest and the darkest time of the year, which impacts many of our family members, our neighbours and our friends. Many are overwhelmed with a sense of hopelessness and fear, or a deep disappointment that Christmas did not deliver on its promises. The longer, warmer days of spring are eons away. Let us hold these people in our hearts and prayers and keep checking in on them—not just through text messages but in person.
While that may be that and our journey to Bethlehem’s stable is over, that is not all there is. As we enter a new year we do not leave the Incarnation behind but rather allow the light from the stable to enter into it and let it shine on our daily lives.
Epiphany is the first season to greet us in 2025. In this holy season we recall two journeys that the magi made—the first to the Child and the second away from him. Now, I think that the second journey was as important as the first because on that journey there was no star to guide them, there were no precious gifts to carry and there was no Holy Family to welcome them at the end of it. All they thought awaited them was the dread of returning to Herod and their homelands.
The magi might have said, “Well, that is that,” and gone back to business as usual. But they didn’t, and in that lies the whole point of this new season as we carry the Light of the World into 2025, the year in which we will be commemorating the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea. The magi left the Child touched and forever changed by what they had experienced. They knew their old way of life had died and so, embracing a new way of being, they followed a dream instead of a threat and chose a different way home.
Perhaps the real test of Christmas is how well we make the journey through the season of Epiphany—not the journey to the crib but the one away from it. What dreams will we follow? What changes will we embrace in our daily lives? Our hands are empty now, open to receiving the new thing God is ready to give us.
Every new year begins with singing and dancing, which is such a wonderful antidote to our January blues. Don’t pack away the crèche too soon—at least not until the Christ Child has wiggled their way firmly into our hearts. With Christ our ever-present guest we will find the strength to be a people of promise even while the old order of time runs its course.
