Winter's Blessings

Pastor’s Epistle—January, A.D. 2014 A

Of Christmas, Confession, and Candlemas

Merry Christmas, everyone! I do hope that it’s been a lovely holiday season for you and yours thus far.

While the culture around us has moved on from Christmas and started hocking Valentines, the Church herself likes to let the Nativity of Our Lord linger for a while longer. We’re all familiar with the Twelve Days of Christmas, that happy time from December 25th right up to Epiphany, or Three Kings Day, on January 6th. If we could get everyone to celebrate a full Twelve Days of Christmas, it would surely be a coup! More recently, however, the Church has extended the Christmas season yet farther, not simply to Epiphany but to the Sunday following Epiphany, which is the Baptism of Our Lord. This means that in Church our Christmas doesn’t officially wrap up until January 12th, for a grand total of 19 days this time around. That’s half the month!

For me this is one of the most enjoyable times of the year. The Christmas craziness is winding down, though surely some of us have relatives yet to arrive and gifts yet to exchange. The Christmas lights are still up, many homes are still cheered by evergreen trees within, and the sweets and treats will linger for days or weeks to come (depending on the size of our families and their appetites). We’ve already blessed wine and beer on the First Sunday of Christmas. Now we can look forward to Epiphany, to the Baptism of Our Lord, and soon—Candlemas!

Candlemas falls on February 2nd, the 40th day after Christmas Day, and it commemorates the Purification of Mary and the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple in Jerusalem 40 days after His birth. Here was the infant Jesus proclaimed as Messiah by the prophets Anna and Simeon, the latter of whom declared Him “the glory of Israel” and “a Light to reveal God to the nations”. Traditionally we bless candles for use in worship and in home devotion upon this day, to remind us of Jesus Christ, the true Light of the world: hence the name, Candlemas. For years St. Peter’s has celebrated an evening Candlemas vespers service (and even a beautiful candlelight wedding), but this time around Candlemas falls on a Sunday, meaning that we can share this service with our entire congregation. I’m quite looking forward to it!

Candlemas also marks the end of the “Greater Winter Festival,” which began with All Saints at the beginning of November. There are old traditional folk songs for Candlemas that sing about taking down the winter greenery, sort of a counterpart to “Deck the Halls”. One of the songs warns that for every leaf of evergreen that remains in a house past Candlemas, a goblin shall invade the home. (Another Candlemas folk tale serves as the basis for Groundhog Day.)

We’ll also be trying some a new approach to adult education in this New Year. Typically we’ve held a monthly Christian Education Forum and a monthly Book Group. What we’ll be trying for 2014 is combining these into a bimonthly Bible Study discussion. We can start off here at St. Peter’s, meeting at 6:30 p.m. on the second and fourth Mondays of the month. (Later on perhaps we could meet and peoples’ houses, should anyone care to host.) We’ll follow a pattern of reading a short section of Scripture out loud, pausing to reread it silently, and then discussing any questions or concerns that spring to mind. In this manner the participants really guide the discussion, and we progress as quickly or slowly as we like. I figure it would be fun to start off with Exodus, one of the most adventuresome books of the Bible! We can kick this off in January, on Monday the 13th.

Last but not least, I wanted to mention individual Confession. As Lutherans it is our practice to confess our sins together as one body each Sunday, so that we might hear God’s promise of forgiveness and renewal before partaking of the Eucharist. This was never intended, however, to rob people of the opportunity for private and individual forgiveness. Indeed, Luther wrote that if private Confession were ever taken from God’s people it would be the work of the Devil, and all our worship books have included the rite of individual Confession and Absolution for our use.

I mention this because I myself experienced the grace of individual Confession for the first time during my Advent retreat with the Holy Trinity Society, and I found it to be an immensely life-giving experience. It gave me the opportunity to more fully unburden my soul and to understand God’s Word of forgiveness as for me. Please know that if you ever feel the weight of concern or sin, God’s Absolution is always available to you here, and not simply on Sundays. I would be happy to gather with anyone in the Sanctuary or at home during the week. As our Episcopalian brothers are fond of saying with regards to personal Confession: “All may. Some should. None must.”

May God bless us in this brave New Year. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.