Happy twelfth day of Christmas! Anyone here planning where to plant a grove of twelve pear trees—or how to get rid of all those lords a-leaping? No? Well, the old traditions aren’t what they used to be. Indeed, a lot of folks anymore don’t know the twelve days of Christmas begin with Christmas—they are the twelve days of the Christmas season, December 25 through January 5. For Shakespeare fans, yes, that means tonight is Twelfth Night, which in Elizabethan England was the last and greatest night of the party; it was a time for the sorts of humorous reversals and playing of the fool which characterize old Will’s greatest comedy.
So this is the last day of the Christmas season, and tomorrow is Epiphany. The feast of Epiphany most likely began as a celebration of Jesus’ baptism, as it still is in Eastern Orthodox churches. In the Western church, however, the focus of Epiphany shifted to the coming of the magi. Their visit marked the first revelation of the Messiah to the Gentiles; it wasn’t exactly the first revelation of the Messiah to the Jews, but the appearance of the magi before Herod was the first announcement of Messiah’s coming to the broader Jewish world beyond Bethlehem. Epiphany is the transition from the Christmas season to Ordinary Time, and it turns our attention from the birth of Jesus to his ministry. It’s the outward turn from celebrating his coming to focusing on why he came, and thus to considering our own work in the world.
Also, by this world’s calendar, this is the first week of the new year, and so for VSF it marks a turn in another way. Last year, we focused first on detachment—on living life with open hands—then turned to grapple with the concept of integrity. A life of full integrity would be living with undivided mind and heart, which is only possible to the degree that we are aligned with the character and will of God. That launched us into a season of teaching on discipleship, on following Jesus’ for Jesus sake, being all-in with him and for him. Only detachment makes discipleship possible, and only faithful discipleship can produce lives of true integrity.