The twelve days of Christmas do not exist only in a song designed to become increasingly (and inevitably) annoying, but are in fact a season in the Church calendar. Christmas Day, December 25, marks the season’s beginning; it lasts twelve days, through January 5. As everyone knows, Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Christmastide, and the one or two Lord’s Days it includes, focuses on the significance of the Incarnation. It gives us an opportunity to reflect on the awesome fact that the Son of God Himself, Lord of Heaven and earth, became a man and lived the same sort of life we all do. Twelve days is a passingly short time to meditate on one of the most wondrous events in history.
January 6 marks Epiphany (meaning “manifestation”). It takes the visit of the magi to Jesus (Matthew 2) as the beginning of Christ being revealed to the world. The Sundays after Epiphany thus focus on the beginnings of Jesus’ earthly ministry, the period during which he became known throughout Galilee and Judea.
Christmastide and Epiphany are linked because the former celebrates the arrival of God as a man in the world he created, and the latter explores the meaning of that event. They give us the opportunity, as Christians, to consider the supernatural and awesome reality of our Gospel: not only did the infinite God become a finite man, and one in the most humble of circumstances, he did so in order to save us from our sins and lift us up into the heavenly glory which is rightfully only his, but ours by his grace and mercy.
No comments:
Post a Comment