When was the last time that believing in Jesus changed your behavior? Today as Church we celebrate the Epiphany, in which Jesus is reveled to the nations. In other words, Christ is for all people, not just the chosen people. The wisemen left their country to find Jesus and worship the newborn King. They changed their very lives in response to the true King.
I know that this Christmas was different, but has the incarnation changed our behavior? Have we spent time on our knees at the manger in prayer, or is the manger scene just a beautiful backdrop for photos? The threat in our society today is to simply look at the incarnation as an historical event. If the incarnation is simplified to just an historical event, then it is easy to become irrelevant to our lives. So how do we change our lives and adjust our behavior for the incarnation?
Some suggestions…
Sing Christmas carols – they contain all of our theology on the incarnation event. They share different perspectives of the birth of Christ. Can we sing Christmas carols as well as we can sing Mariah Carey’s ‘All I want for Christmas is you?’ If not, we need to sing more carols.
Spend a few minutes on our knees in front of the manger. Enter into the mystery, enter into the event of Jesus’ birth. Dads and Moms, have you led your children and modeled prayer before the manger?
- Gifts – as we celebrate the Epiphany, what are you bringing to the Christ child?Consider a gift of spending time with Jesus, what about intentionally singing a Christmas carol, reading scripture, offering our talent to Jesus. Maybe the next time we play a sport, play that game, knit that blanket or do our favorite thing, we dedicate our effort to baby Jesus.
- Do the Epiphany blessing found on the cover of the bulletin as a family!
Jesus’ birth changes everything. How has it changed you? How are our behaviors revealing our belief in the incarnation to the world? It’s not too late to let the incarnation transform us.
Keep smiling 
Fr. Bryan