Why are the Christmas Decorations Still up? January 10, 2010

How many weeks ago was Christmas?  Three.  Why do we still have the Christmas decorations up?  What?  Yeah, you've been waiting on me to help you take them down.  They put a smile on our face.  Because we haven't celebrated the Epiphany?  That was last Sunday.  The feast we celebrate today is the baptism of the Lord.  

By the way, next Sunday ‑‑ look at that window there, that's the one Father Kirkhoff mentioned his family gave ‑‑ next Sunday the Gospel will be the wedding feast at Cana.  

In the ancient church, our celebration of the revelation of Christ had three primary feasts:  Epiphany, which in the east is still the biggest; the baptism of the Lord; and the wedding feast in at Cana.  In all of these, Christ revealed himself.  The last one to come on the scene was December 25.  That's distinctively Roman and had more to do with politics than with faith.  

Does anybody know how December 25 came to be when we celebrate Christmas?  It was a Roman pagan feast.  The Emperor Constantine wanted to use Christianity to unite the empire, and he found that Christianity was divided over the Arian heresy, so he locked all the bishops in a room and said you ain't coming out till you agree.  So they came up with the Nicene creed, and they looked for a feast to celebrate that.  And the Romans celebrated the feast of the unconquered sun on December 25, two days after the winter solstice, so they took that over and made it a celebration of the birth of Jesus.  That's just a little Catholic trivia for those who might be interested.  

But as I was thinking of that and looking around our church at its windows, every one of these windows is in some way a revelation of Christ, isn't it?  In the manger, in the midst of the temple with the teachers of the Law, the wedding feast at Cana, the sermon on the mount, the woman who wept at his feet and dried them with her hair, the children coming to be blessed by Jesus, the last supper ‑‑ I'm sure he didn't hold a gold cup at the last supper ‑‑ the agony in the garden, the crucifixion, and the ascension.

If we had a lot of time, I would ask you -- how many of you here have had your own personal revelation of Christ?  I don't see any hands.  I hope many of you would say that in your own way you've had your revelation.  And they're as rich and varied as all of us.  

Well, today we celebrate the rite of acceptance for three people, and we make it our heartfelt prayer that in this community they will come to their own unique and personal revelation of Christ.  So now I would like to call them forward with their sponsors.