Thought for the Season

January 2024

Happy New Year!  Christmas is over;  at least it looks like it around where I live.  There are one or two houses where their outside lights are still shining and I make a point of keeping at least one crib out of the boxes where the decorations are stowed away until next year.  So it’s not quite over – not until Candlemas on February 2nd when the church commemorates the visit of the Holy Family to the temple where Simeon and Anna recognise that Jesus is the one they have been waiting for.  Now, though, is the season of the Epiphany for the Western church.  It’s the time when the visit of the Magi or Wise Men to the Christ child mark the fact that God is present in Jesus Christ for the whole world and not just for one particular group of people.  The bible talks about that group as Gentiles and nativity scenes and Christmas cards sometimes show that by the Wise Men coming from different racial backgrounds.  You might extend that to people of different identity in other ways:  gender, occupation, the neurodiverse, people of different abilities, faith and belief and all the other ways human beings identify themselves to each other.  God’s presence in Jesus is God present for the whole of creation.  That’s something to celebrate throughout the year – and something to inspire us to respect each other and to care for the earth.  In that sense it’s Christmas every day, whether you wish it or not.