Of Gods and Bones

Pastor’s Epistle—January, A.D. 2016 C

January is named for Janus, the two-faced Roman god of transitions, doorways, and beginnings. One of his faces looks back, the other forward. And I rather think that’s how it feels to be the Church at this particular season of the year.

On the one hand, we as the Church seem to be lagging a bit behind the times: while store shelves have moved on to the holy Sts Valentine and Patrick, our sanctuary remains decorated for Christmas, a season that we continue to celebrate until the Sunday after Epiphany. While it is traditional for those with live Christmas trees to burn them in a festive bonfire on Twelfth Night (January 5), the rest of our holiday greenery can stay up all the way until Candlemas (February 2). Having waited through most of December to welcome Christmas, the Church is in no hurry to send it on its way. As a reminder of this, St Peter’s will hold Epiphany vespers on the evening of January 6. Come enjoy some frankincense and myrrh—gold, not so much.

On the other hand, we’re already looking ahead into 2016. Our office is full of planning calendars: weekly, monthly, and year-at-a-glance. It’s an early Easter this year, with Ash Wednesday falling in the second week of February, and Holy Week wrapping up in March. Lent is right around the corner with Pentecost not terribly far behind. It’s a funny thing, looking ahead at an entire year all laid out on a single sheet of paper. It’s even stranger to fold up all of 2015 in its predecessor. How brief our span of life truly is—yet how rich are the experiences that we enjoy within a single revolution about the sun. After my father died, my mother began a tradition of burning old calendars month by month on New Year’s Eve. It’s become a ritual of gratitude, of mourning, and of a hopeful letting go. Thus like Janus have we two faces in January, the one facing forward, the other back.

A belated Christmas present arrived from the Netherlands today: a vial of St Nicholas Manna. For those who haven’t heard me tell the story of “The Bones of St Nicholas”—an annual favorite I tend to repeat every December—suffice to say that the relics of St Nicholas apparently have been secreting a fragrant fluid for over 1600 years. This “manna” has been used in blessings and prayers for healing ever since. Nicholas has always been important to me; insofar as Lutherans can be said to have patron saints, I claim him as my own. This vial of his manna sits now on my shelf, an honest reminder both of our mortality and of Christ’s promise of life everlasting. Someday my bones, too, will rest in a crypt. Someday my bones, too, will rise from their grave.

God has given to each of us so very much, and promised to us so very much more to come. As we stand upon the cusp of 2016, both as the inheritors of all the ancient promises given unto God’s people and as the recipients of all the fulfillment yet to come, the only question left to us is what to do with the time we have. A new year lies open before us. Wonderful and terrible things will happen. Let us go forth in gratitude, giving thanks to God by serving our neighbor in Jesus’ Name. Amen.