Epiphany - Light Comes to a Weary World

The craziness and excesses of the holiday are over.  Winter is settling in and we seem to want nothing more than to stay home and curl up in bed or by the fire.  You know the snow is coming soon.  The days are short and the nights are soooo long.  We wake up in darkness and come home from our daily travels in darkness.  Sometimes we are cooped up in a cubicle with no window, to top it all off.  “Blah,” we say, “What good comes of January?”

It is during the winter, when the snow covers the ground, that roots and seeds that were tucked into the frozen/thawing/frozen ground are insulated and watered by the snow pack and begin to do their molecular thing.   Energy is drawn up from roots.  Flower and leaf buds get their cells together in preparation for the wonder of spring. 

Nature is busy on a molecular level…. And so are we.

God’s work.  Our Hands.

Our hearts and minds have been fed with a heavenly gift, the birth of a Savior.  The seeds of love have been sown.  The stirrings of hearts reaching out to others in a burst of December altruism have put roots into our souls, yearning that it might always feel this way.

January is a recovery time, a planning time, a nurturing time.  Our January calendar is relatively simple… the cleaning up of holiday decorations, the continuation of our regular worship and education programs, and the preparations and planning for a new season… Lent and then Easter.  Already February is full of fun and spiritual events.

So while Epiphany might seem dark, light dawns in our hearts and minds as the seeds of what has been planted in us begin to germinate.

What will become of the seeds planted in you this year?  Will you nurture them with worship and community in Christ?  Will you feed them with Word and Sacrament?  Or will you curl up and leave them dormant within you, just waiting to burst forth with the joy of a God who loves you so much that He would send His Only Son to live within you?

Make your New Year’s Resolution to be a plan to GROW your spirit and plant your roots firmly in a relationship with God and your fellow believers at St. Andrew. 

(come back tomorrow to read some New Year’s Resolutions)

We are called to let our light shine!  Hide it under a bushel?  NO!

How do you plan to let your "God light" shine this year?

Join us for worship on Sundays @ 8:30 and 10:45 am.

Christian Education at 9:45 am

St. Andrew Lutheran Church

335 Reynolds Ave., Parsippany, NJ  07054

www.elcaAndy.org