By The Rev. Susan Balfour

Having just concluded the Christmas season and entered the liturgical Tradewinds that will unfailingly sail us into Lent, we breathe easy. The hard work of anticipation and preparation done, the Christ child safely delivered from womb and from Herod, we settle down in Nazareth. And we rest from the busy-ness of the holiday season, feeling the frenzy ebb for at least another ten months. 

It’s a poignant time, inviting us to reflect on the profound divine gift of Love and our all-too-human failure to honor that gift. Inviting us, too, to consider what it means to be one who calls upon Christ in a world that scoffs at any Prince that stands for Peace. How do we embody our faith in a world that has tried to ensure peace, only to find that human weakness, unfettered greed, elitist entitlement, bloodlust, and imperial ambition defy our best attempts to live together in peace on this small and fragile planet?

This is the season of Epiphany, when we do our best to figure out how the Incarnation actually applies to us. Still glowing from holiday cheer, not quite ready for Lenten austerity, we spend this liminal time between Incarnation and revelation focused on the significance of the Babe we have worshipped in the manger. This is the New Life that threatens Old Power. This is the Future that occludes the Past. This is the Word that denounces Falsehood. As we approach our time of repentance, we might well ask what our Christian calling is in this liminal space – and find our answer in the Christ who scares worldly powers out of their minds with so little threat as that posed by a newborn baby.

We have power. The power of our faith, our convictions, our citizenry, our voice. In a world that wants us to believe that we have no power we remember that one little baby upended the entire world with his promise of new life, new covenant, and new humanity. Christmas might be over, but now Jesus enters the same waters of baptism in which we’ve been bathed—and we hear God calling us to a life of faith that defies depravity, into a life of gracious mutuality. Thanks be to God.