This was the first year in fifteen years that I have not led worship on Christmas Eve…or planned for a Service of Lessons and Carols for the Sunday after Christmas (so as not to have to preach!)…or otherwise been involved in planning worship or making sure bulletins are formatted and printed at the appropriate times (or worrying that the printer would break at the most inopportune time).

I’d like to share with you how it was different. For the past 15 years, I’ve worked hard to make sure everything would go as planned—that the services would draw people into the mystery of the incarnation and that somehow I could sprinkle some of that Christmas “magic” into the hearts of my parishioners. Typically, it would feel like a sort of liturgical whiplash, the quick transition from Advent through Christmas to Epiphany: from waiting to birth to light. It’s a quick transition if you think about it, just twelve days to reorient your heart and mind. To be honest, it’s always been the hardest time of the year for me. I get immersed in the beautiful longing of Advent and am never quite ready to make the transition to Epiphany. Usually, it has to do with the state of the world and the suffering contained therein. It’s always very clear to me that, no matter how long we’ve waited, four weeks is never enough to eliminate the need for a savior.

This year, however, something shifted. Because I did not immediately bounce from one service to the next, the twelve days of Christmas blossomed for me in a way they haven’t in a very long time. Time slowed down for a beat or two, and in the comfort of my own home, I could sense that love had been born, and I could linger in it a bit.

We adopted our son when he was just two months old. I still remember that first night he slept in our home. Because we had had only two weeks to prepare for his arrival, we had nowhere for him to sleep except for a wicker basket called a “Moses basket” that another family had lent us. He slept in the basket, and I slept on the sofa beside him so that neither of us would feel alone. And then, during six weeks of parental leave, we learned, little by little, how to live with one another. We didn’t go out much because when we did, it was an event, but plenty of people came to us. They came to see him and hold him, gifts started arriving on our doorstep, and we finally got a crib. There was a time of adjustment.

I wonder if Epiphany—and the season after Epiphany—would be an easier season if we thought of it more in terms of parental leave. It is, after all, a period of about six weeks. Of course, we can’t take leave from our jobs or our responsibilities, but a subtle shift in our thinking might serve us well. It takes time to learn how to live with a new baby, especially when that baby is the light of the world. Perhaps this Epiphany season, we can gift ourselves with a bit of grace as we allow the light of the world to grow in us, maybe not like a firework so much, but like a candle whose light spreads to others until the whole room is as bright as the sun.

Let your light so shine.