Wondering Pilgrim

The twelfth day of Christmas… Epiphany!

Magi by Brian Whelan, This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Tradition usually has the visit of the magi with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh on the final day of Christmas, heralding the season of Epiphany, the celebration of a manifestation, that in Jesus, all that needs to be known about God is revealed. The gifts of these 12 days comprise this epiphany. The challenge now is for someone to set them to the metre and music of the familiar “Partridge in a Pear Tree” carol which has its own debated symbolism.

On the twelfth day of Christmas, God gave humanity:
12 Epiphany
11 Auld Lang Syne – connection
10 Word dwells among us
9 Deep wisdom
8 Fresh start
7 Visionary hope
6 Cosmic outlook
5 Unconstrained love
4 Thankful hearts
3 Wedding clothes
2 Completion
1….and peace on earth to all.

Now there’s a start!

On the eleventh day of Christmas … Auld Lang Syne

The gift of connection. The final days of Christmas coincide with New Year celebrations and reflections. As the calendar turns over to the new year, Robert Burn’s Auld Lang Syne rings out through the gathered crowds. It is a song of connection and Christmas is about God’s ultimate gift of connection in dwelling amongst us in Jesus of Nazareth, who became known as the Christ for this very fact.

Scotland has sent an invitation to the world to join them in a universal singing of Auld Lang Syne. You can see details here. Our congregation decided, in the name of connection, to join in, and they are sending this video clip to (hopefully) be included.

The tenth day of Christmas… Word dwells amongst us

Nativity — “Adoration of the Shepherds” by Gerard van Honthorst, 1622, Public Domain

Sometimes a gift takes more than one day to unwrap, so we continue to reflect on the implications of deep Wisdom (the Word) taking on flesh in Jesus of Nazareth and dwelling in our midst. A gift is not always well received – look at how busy the “Returns” counter is at the Boxing Day sales. John’s Gospel tells us “… the world did not know him…” and “… his own people did not accept him… ”

Unwrap and engage the gift completely and – voila! – “… to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God…”

That’s what happens when the Word dwells among us and we pay attention!

On the ninth day of Christmas – Deep Wisdom

Personification of wisdom (in Greek, Σοφία or Sophia) at the Celsus Library in Ephesus, Turkey. photo by Radomil talk 21:21, 30 November 2005 (UTC) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

There is a deep wisdom behind the universe. It is beyond knowledge – knowing how things work. It is beyond mysticism – trusting how things work. Yet it involves and transcends both. In the Jewish and Christian traditions, this deep wisdom has a central focus. Hebrew tradition personifies wisdom as a woman practical and present at Creation, most famously portrayed in Proverbs 8. The epiphany of wisdom here earthy, pragmatic and full of common sense. She became known in the Greek tradition as Sophia, and there is a strong strand in traditional Christianity alluding to the femininity of Wisdom.

John’s Gospel reflects its Hellenistic context. Here the more abstract term Logos – (reason) comes into play. It is the instrument through which the universe comes into being and is identified as being both with/of God and, indeed, God as well. The Logos took flesh and is recognisable in Jesus of Nazareth. Hence, Jesus is revered as the Word, the wisdom, of God. Both Sophia and Logos refer us to the deep Wisdom behind all things, and they are today’s gift.

On the eighth day of Christmas … a fresh start

Why is New Year’s Day so evocative of lists to improve and enhance our personal and communal living? Life is comprised of cycles, and somehow, deeply embedded in our collective psyche, a New Year (always capitalised!) marks that part of the cycle where we take a deep breath and start all over again. The gift of Christmas’s eighth day underlines this in the text from Ecclesiastes 3:1-13 with its sage exhortation to attend to the seasons and not sweat the small stuff! And if you’re not inclined to look it up, you can hear the late Peter Seeger, age 93, get his audience to help him pump it out.

On the seventh day of Christmas… hope that envisions a new heaven and a new earth.

This morning another eight Christian leaders face court in Perth on charges of trespass, a result of advocacy for asylum seeker children in the face of political intransigence and obfuscation. A particularly disturbing feature of the incidents of these arrests was the decision by the police, for the first time, to introduce strip-search procedures, evidently designed to intimidate and deter further protests. A year of like protest actions has turned a dark corner. However, those charged would still direct our thoughts to those languishing in detention in the tropical hell-holes of Manus and Nauru, where minors fear for their lives and remain devoid of hope. Christmas has something to do with the climax of the apocalyptic terror in John’s Revelation where a new heaven and a new earth are revealed. Revelation 21:1-6 is replete with prophetic imagery of hope realised. For two millennia, it has sustained the hopes and aspirations for followers of Jesus, the Alpha and Omega, contained for a while in a vulnerable infant. It is the vision and hope of a redeemed society that drives the thrust for mercy and justice behind the #lovemakesaway advocates who stand before our land’s magistrates. Such a hope, such a vision, is a gift of the seventh day of Christmas.

On the sixth day of Christmas – cosmic outlook!

Imagine being freed of all spatial and temporal limitation! The high fence surrounding our time frame of an allotted threescore and ten (or thereabout) is torn down. Star Trek type transportation effortlessly disassembles and reunites our cells so that, at a word, we can be present to any place in the universe. We are perennially at the peak of our health and vitality. We are more fulfilled than we can ever have imagined, engaged in the purpose of a loving, sustaining, expanding stance to one another, indeed to all that is.

One can only revert to familiar science fiction memes to express an appreciation of the sacred awareness that is the gift described by the text for the sixth day of Christmas – Ephesians 1:3-14. Through the coming of Christ, all limiting barriers that separate us from ourselves, others, the Creator and the creation are dissolved. God’s awareness becomes our awareness; God’s purpose becomes our purpose; God’s love becomes our love.

On the fifth day of Christmas … unconstrained love

Love … the kind that puts others’ interests as first priority … is often constrained, especially under stress. Disrupted routines, whether well-off families on holidays, refugees seeking asylum, or those managing unforeseen crises, render it difficult to focus on our own needs, let alone the needs of others.

Jeremiah 31:7-14 is the fifth day of Christmas gift. It’s primary context speaks of a boundless love from God for his exiled people. It is appropriated for the Christmas season as vindication. See – God has always been with his people and now dwells amongst them, incarnated in the child born to Mary and Joseph on Nazareth! This gift is so boundless; it embraces the universe.

I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you. (Jeremiah 31:3b)

On the fourth day of Christmas… an orientation to praise and thanksgiving.

When visiting one of the rural districts surrounding Zvishavane in the south of Zimbabwe 3 months ago, we were struck by the resilience of those who lived on the parched plots with little easy access to water, healthcare and education for their children. We were exploring a program run by the Zimbabwe churches with whom we partner that assists grandparents caring for grandchildren orphaned mostly by AIDS. Material help with seeds, chickens, goats, consumables and education fees are provided, along with pastoral support.

When one gogo (grandmother) was asked what else she needed, she replied, “The ability to keep praising God!” Her family had been particularly harshly ravaged by illness, failed crops and sheer misfortune. In her wisdom, she perceived a capacity to be positively oriented to the world through her faith to be a true gift.

On the fourth day of Christmas may our gift be that given by this woman – the understanding of a need for a capacity to praise God for his persistent involvement in our lives, not in ways that are always discernable to us, but emphatically underlined by God’s “riding with us” in Jesus of Nazareth and all who follow his path. Use Psalm 148 for practice!

On the third day of Christmas….clothes!

No, not those bargains from the Boxing Day sales. The prophet rhapsodies over gifts of garments representing security, belonging, freedom and hope for the realisation of a vision where all is right with the world. To wear this apparel is to celebrate, as if at a wedding. Something new is beginning and we dress accordingly. Festive garlands, soothing oils and a garden setting complete the picture. The birth of Jesus is the event that triggers recollections of Isaiah’s song: indeed this song is a response that almost immediately follows the prophet’s manifesto read by Jesus in the Nazareth synagogue as he commenced his ministry.