I was a full-grown adult before I understood how the “twelve days of Christmas” worked. The jolly little song proved familiar enough– “On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me…”–though the partridge and pear tree always perplexed as gift choices. To each his own, I suppose. But I think for a long time, I assumed that the song must refer to a strange unit within the Advent calendar–perhaps the twelve days leading up to Christmas.
Years later, I learned more about Epiphany, celebrated on the 6th of January to commemorate the magi who traveled from afar to worship Jesus. At some point, it clicked for me that the “twelve days of Christmas” might in fact designate the celebration of Christmas, extending from Christ’s birth through his revelation to the wider world.
More important than new insight on this holiday song and numbering convention was understanding in greater depth what Epiphany represents for us. The magi, or “wise men,” did not fully grasp who they were traveling to honor and worship. They walked in faith, trusting that the brilliant star guiding them proffered a signal flare of hope, a beacon of something brighter that they couldn’t yet name but whose meaning and significance they profoundly sensed. And they were right. Christ’s birth offered grace for all, not only in the tightly-knit Jewish communities claiming Mary, Joseph, and their kin, and not even just in the Roman world that extended imperially around and beyond them. This grace overflowed tribal identities, political borders, and a daunting geography traversed by small boats and camels.
What the magi followed and sought proved bigger and brighter…and ultimately impossible to ignore. So they traveled earnestly, bringing offerings considered precious and valuable from their corner of the world. These gifts might pale in comparison to the enormity of a new king, or a new world order, or whatever one might imagine a star-heralded birth to signal, but the gifts represented what was immeasurably precious to the givers. And that was what mattered.
I’ll confess that I don’t always remember to fully mark Epiphany beyond its celebration liturgically at the appropriate Sunday service. I have good intentions, but sometimes the day itself passes me by amid the unavoidable busyness of the new year. By the Twelfth Day of Christmas, I’m often already entrenched along the narrow road of a highly scheduled life, but I believe that’s all the more reason to recall a different calendar and the star that summons even when concealed behind the bright business of the day. Epiphany calls us to walk our paths under the light of grace, and it does so even as we turn here at Valpo toward a new semester and its fullness.
What star beckons us? What signal flare of hope persists tenaciously (even if a lake-effect snow squall does roar in during our first hour of spring semester classes)?
What unearned grace covers us all, freeing us to pursue education, formation, and service to neighbor and world?
What treasured gifts do each of us carry along our common way?
As we begin the next stage of our journey together in this new semester, I offer Jan Richardson’s epiphany poem–a gift for the road and a small reminder of that beckoning star.
A Blessing for Epiphany
If you could see
the journey whole
you might never
undertake it;
might never dare
the first step
that propels you
from the place
you have known
toward the place
you know not.
Call it
one of the mercies
of the road:
that we see it
only by stages
as it opens
before us,
as it comes into
our keeping
step by
single step.
There is nothing
for it
but to go
and by our going
take the vows
the pilgrim takes:
to be faithful to
the next step;
to rely on more
than the map;
to heed the signposts
of intuition and dream;
to follow the star
that only you
will recognize;
to keep an open eye
for the wonders that
attend the path;
to press on
beyond distractions
beyond fatigue
beyond what would
tempt you
from the way.
There are vows
that only you
will know;
the secret promises
for your particular path
and the new ones
you will need to make
when the road
is revealed
by turns
you could not
have foreseen.
Keep them, break them,
make them again:
each promise becomes
part of the path;
each choice creates
the road
that will take you
to the place
where at last
you will kneel
to offer the gift
most needed—
the gift that only you
can give—
before turning to go
home by
another way.
– Dr. Anna Stewart
Director, Institute for Leadership and Service
