Rise and Shine!

Early on in Tennessee William’s play The Glass Menagerie, the always pushing and prodding mother, Amanda, comes into the living room and awakens her sleeping son, Tom, by shouting at his stretched-out figure on the pull-out couch,  “Rise and shine! Rise and shine!” An irritated Tom yells back, “I’ll rise, Mother,  but I won’t shine.” 

By the end of the Christmas season, many of us may have similar feelings.  Winter doldrums, whether or not accompanied by freezing weather and power-threatening snowstorms, often motivate little more than a slow motion arising with little emanating radiance. 

But the light of this crowning feast of the Christmas season does not depend on us. Light comes to us, as it did to the magi and to the shepherds in the fields,  and as it did to Bethlehem, to Nazareth, and eventually to Jerusalem, Samaria, and from there out to the ends of the earth. The Light comes to us as gift, as grace.  This Light enables Jews and Gentiles, men and women of North America, South  America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Middle East to look at each other and recognize brothers and sisters rather than strangers, aliens, even enemies. 

The feast of the Epiphany expresses God’s will that all creation come to know the God revealed in Jesus Christ who continues to shine forth in light and love.  The promise of the feast is that all of us are capable of absorbing and reflecting this light so that the whole earth may be delivered from its darkness. 

Consider/Discuss

• Do you see yourself as a reflector of God’s light, someone with a capacity to provide an epiphany for others? 
• What helps or hinders you from recognizing all men and women as your brothers and sisters, beloved of God? 

Responding to the Word

Lord Jesus, you continue to come into the world as light that pushes back the darkness. Continue to enlighten our minds and hearts, opening them to receive you in whatever way you come to us. Help us to find you in our daily lives by removing whatever prevents our seeing your light.