“EPIPHANY – WHAT?”

           

            I couldn’t believe it!  No sooner Santa had left the stores, every one seemed to salivate for the hot cross buns (not you, of course). Yeek! What happened to Epiphany and Lent? And Christmas has been commercially truncated. It was supposed to go on for twelve days. Didn’t we sing about diverse things stuck in a pear tree? Didn’t 12 lords come leaping to us sent by our true love on the 12th day? Not that I saw any. All I saw on the 2nd day were not 2 turtle doves but a horde of manic shoppers treading over the door-openers of all the stores in town eager for bargains at the Boxing Day sales.

            And the Wise Men had not yet come. Perhaps that’s why they were wise.

They had not come to worship Santa or the hot cross buns. Timing, people, timing!

            Leaving out Epiphany! Shame! Now that Christmas is well and truly behind us even though contacting my annual list has been much delayed because certain surgeons wanted their cut first. We have ceased wishing people a Happy New Year now that all our resolutions, like giving up procrastination, have been put off for next time, and more than enough disasters have already sadly happened.

            Now that people are in doubt what to wish one another, I’ve taken to greeting everyone, “Happy Epiphany!” only to be stared back at with an awestruck look questioning my deteriorating sanity. Dear, dear, if only they knew about Epiphany they wouldn’t be missing one of the most exciting times of the year.

            Epiphany is the time of making known whom God unwrapped for us at Christmas. Jesus Christ is not just the gift for us but on the label we’ll find written the words, “For you and for the world, especially those who need good news.” How are all those needing good news going to receive good news? Santa’s reindeer or the Wise Men (whichever school you went to) have now departed to feed their camels or reindeer whatever, so we are left holding the great gift of God in our hot little hearts yearning to find the yearning hearts for whom the good news is also meant.

            The Christmas Bowl Appeal should now be on its way not so much in the guise of Santa or the Wise Men but represented in the bucket brigade across the gaps to those who wait for useful stuff that will help them renew their lives this year. Now, that is a resolution worth keeping because it becomes good news for those to whom this all was intended.

By the time Epiphany has finished in a burst of tossed pancakes, you would have then learned that Lent is not the stuff that’s left in a clothes-drier. So, Happy Epiphany!