Tomorrow is New Year's Day. It will likely take me about a month to stop writing "2020" on checks, and instead put the right year. Our brains love to build little synapses highways, mysterious neuron connections, to be efficient and respond to anticipated inputs. I wonder if this wiring process is part of what can make change so hard, part of what has made 2020 such a challenging year.
We will be celebrating Epiphany this Sunday (the Day of Epiphany is January 6th). Epiphany is marked by the hearing of the Magi visiting the young child Jesus. Epiphany in many ways is an invitation for us to once again see ourselves as part of God's turning of the cosmic calendar...to Jesus.
If you have ever walked into a dark foreign room...and suddenly turned the lights on...this is basically an epiphany...a time when the light goes on...when you have a sudden realization that changes everything. Ralph Jacobson in his book Crazy Talk goes on to say that "in the church, epiphany refers to the sudden, glorious, wow-we-didn't-see-that-coming, this-changes-everything revelation that God has come to us in Jesus Christ - born of a woman, crucified, and risen."
COVID has forever changed the way we worship. We will never return to a time that doesn't include a live-stream component on Sunday morning. Having a Zoom option for people to join committee and council meetings are here to stay. And, there are many other things about life together as the church that we are starting to have epiphanies about for the road ahead. As it becomes easier to gather later this year, more epiphanies will surely come.
In the words of the angels, "do not be afraid." When epiphanies happen in the life of the church, I believe they are heavenly invitations to wonder what God's Spirit is up to among us and in our community...and not to not STOP at wondering...to not be afraid to follow Jesus with the new light we have been given by God to live by.
May your 2021 be filled with epiphanies of how God's love has changed everything for life with your family, at work, in retirement, for our church, our community, and our world.
In God's light,
Pastor Vanicek
