One definition for the word “epiphany” in Merriam Webster’s dictionary is “:a usually sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something.”
This is the twelfth day of Christmas, it is Epiphany, the day on which the whole Christian Church celebrates the showing of the baby of Christmas to all mankind as the Wise Men visit Him in Nazareth. He was two years old at the time, and Mary and Joseph had returned to their hometown with their child to carry on their real lives.
By now many of you have put away Christmas for another year, or wish you already had that job behind you. You have broken at least one of your New Year resolutions, and the kids have perhaps already lost or broken some Christmas toy or piece of it.
But I wait for this day, maybe even more than I wait for Christmas.
It is quiet, and it is peaceful in my house today (well, okay, Jim is still snoring a bit), and I am sitting here, as I do each January 6, thankful for all this season means. I absolutely love Santa, I have a collection of Santas that decorates our family room 365 days a year. But I also know and understand why we celebrate Christmas, and Santa is just another reminder. There would be no Christmas, had we no knowledge of the baby born in Bethlehem…He is the reason for the season.
So on Epiphany I think about what this season is all about, in the quiet, in the peace of my own surroundings. And I have a new epiphany of my own each and every year, a quiet awakening of what it all means, and I am grateful to be here and have the opportunity to celebrate life and love with family, with friends, and with…myself!