Today’s post comes from Sarah Lindsay, Savior’s Director of Communications and Children’s Ministry Coordinator.
Christmas is over: the trees are down, the decorations (mostly) packed away, the excitement of new toys has worn off. And with the snow and the cold, January is reminding us that winter has settled in for an unpleasantly long visit. Even the church calendar has reset to ordinary time: a season of days ticked off the calendar between the feast of Christmas and the solemn fast of Lent.
As we readjust to routines, packing lunches, searching for lost mittens, and eating dinner after dark, the joy and light of Christmas can seem distant. But during this season of Epiphany, of ordinary days, we have a chance to continue celebrating the coming of Jesus, the light of the world. During Epiphany, we remember the ordinary ways in which Jesus revealed himself to the world: in the muddy waters of the Jordan River, at a wedding in Cana, as he preaches in his hometown.
In children’s worship, the children sing about the colors of the church year: ordinary time is green, and “green is for the growing time.” It’s hard to remember in the icy grip of January and February that growth is happening. But just as the days are slowly lengthening and the bulbs under the earth are waiting to grow again, the light whose arrival we celebrate at Christmas continues to shine. Let us take the time in this ordinary space of Epiphany to notice how Jesus is present in our world.