I remember my second year teaching: I had a crazy schedule and almost all of my time was spent in doors in A/C. I woudl get to school early, prep some essential items for the start of the day, answer the first volley of emials, and pray with a group of administrators and teachers in my room. I would then have four classes back-back without breaks or prep periods, followed by lunch meetings and/or school clubs for which I was the chaperone. I would then have my one break before teaching two more classes, going to hula class and attending the after school meetings which make up the private school teacher’s afternoon.
I remember the day when I decided to use all of that one break, or as much of it as possible, outside. I walked outside with that kind of airplane-recycled-oxygen, A/C frigid, simultaneously chilled and clammy, and into the sun. I got chicken-skin. I smiled. The long rays licked my face and bathed by arms and hands with the brightness, I had to shut my eyes for extremity of brilliance, the warmth got down into my toes. I remember laughing. I was so glad for the sun, for its generous radiance, for its fullness. But I could not look directly at it. It was a mysterious and wondrous goodness, but it was mysterious precisely because of how obvious, unhidden, not occulted, and apparent it was.
Notice: some things are mysterious because they are shrouded and enigmatic. But other things are mysterious because, like the sun, they are so real, so apparent, so obvious that I cannot gaze directly into them.
We have now entered the liturgical season of Epiphany. It is a time of revelation and revelry: we revel in the mystery of the Ministry of Jesus. During Christmastide we remembered and celebrated the mystery of Christ’s Incarnation and Birth, the mystery and wonder of his arrival; we rejoice in Jesus’ childhood. Now, in Epiphany, we celebrate Jesus’ manhood. It is a season of apocalypse, of unveiling, of basking in the glory of the Messiah’s work and ministry. Like the A/C-sick Mark of the above anecdote being warmed by a bright autumn afternoon, so the season of Epiphany finds us dazzled by the mystery of Jesus Christ.
Let us bask in the warmth and the glow and the joyous brightness of Jesus as we spend what’s left of winter and move towards Carnival, spring, and Lent. Let the goodness of the Gospel stories, the miracles, the healings, the confrontations with religious leaders, the undaunted righteousness of Jesus, give us chicken skin, make us laugh, and warm us in those places where our love has grown cold —those places where we have lost our first love (Rev. 2:4), and where we have busied ourselves with the keeping of other vineyards only to find that we have failed to keep our own (Songs 1:6).
Come Lord Christ, shine on us; let the shadows flee away, for winter is passing and the spring has come. Amen.