Epiphany 2020

2020 has been glorious thus far. Contrary to most years, the weather has been nearly perfect for a Minnesota winter. Oh, sure, there have been a couple ice storms and some annoying blowing and drifting. But the temperatures have been pretty consistently above zero, and the sun is shining more days than not. Today it's an amazingly bright and glorious day outside. I'm going to go enjoy it in a bit, maybe breaking my snowshoes out for the first hike of the year.

My daughter and son-in-law just drove out. They were working like mad through Christmas, so we enjoyed the weekend together, celebrated a late Christmas, and just generally hung out and talked about stuff. I can't begin to express how precious conversations like that are to me. As I've written here before, I desperately need that conversational mirror that helps me see reality more clearly. The encouragement, correction, and delightful humor they brought this weekend was such a gift.

So much of what makes life meaningful is the web of relationships that give us a place. Love anchors us to each other and to the world. In essence, that's what today is about. Epiphany is a celebration of Jesus coming into the world as light. In 1 John you can read two unequivocal statements about the nature of God. They're not contradictory but complementary.

1. God is light and in him is no darkness at all.
2. God is love; the one who loves is born of God and knows God.

I think sometimes on Epiphany about the interrelationship between light and love. We use both of these words to describe the very best of relationships. (And for those of you who idealize the 1970's, here's a link to get the song thoroughly stuck in your head.)  Instinctively we associate light with love and vice versa. On this day when you can finally feel the days getting longer, it's appropriate to think about Jesus coming to be the tangible presence of God's love among us. It is this same Jesus who said, "I am the light of the world."

The sun is starting to drop in the sky as I write this, so I'm going to get my snowshoes strapped on. I hope your Epiphany is full of light and love!