A Word from the Wise

A baby inspires Simeon and Anna to do something that sounds familiar on New Year’s Eve: they look forward. But for them, it’s a future world their eyes will never see.

There’s always a bit of a letdown in these days after Christmas. All that pressure — the preparations, presents and people coming together from across the miles! The pressure focuses like a laser beam on one day out of the year. When it’s over, it’s over.

There’s still a good deal of commercial activity going on, of course, down at the mall: returns, gift-card redemptions, and bargain-basement prices on cards and wrapping paper. But that’s just clean-up. The big secular holiday is over. There’s something forlorn about this last gasp of post-dated Christmas shopping.

Which is just the opposite of the way the church looks at it. From now until Epiphany, January 6, we find ourselves in the bright and joyous season of Christmas, that only began on Christmas Eve. But just try to sell that in a culture that believes the Christmas season lasts from Halloween to Christmas Day! After that, for most of our neighbors, Christmas hope winks out like the...