Yesterday was the great feast of Epiphany, which is celebrated on the thirteenth day after Christmas. It’s a feast with a strange and murky history, but I think it’s instructive for this whole midwinter season. It seems that Epiphany, which means ‘shining forth’, was originally a general midwinter feast that, at the darkest time of … Continue reading God’s Shining Forth: A Reflection on Epiphany and Genesis 1.1-5
[Note: Some churches (including my own) replace the readings for Christmas 1 with those for Epiphany, but I’m not ready to leave Christmas behind just yet — Epiphany isn’t for another six days! — so I’m sticking with the Christmas 1 readings. If you’d like an Epiphany-focused reflection today, feel free to check out here … Continue reading Turning Point: A Reflection on Luke 2.22-41
The message of Christmas is that God is with us -- all of us.
[Note: This post was originally published December 24, 2020.] The holiday season is in many ways a season of choices: Which gifts to buy, which charities to give to, which cookies to make and what to serve for the feast, and — in a normal year, at least — which invitations to accept and which … Continue reading Here I Am: A Reflection for Advent 4 (Repost)
One of the most interesting things to me when thinking about how the 'holiday season' has changed over the past couple decades is how much we’ve given over Christmas storytelling to stories of love and romance. It’s almost as though in translating our cultural ideas of childhood wonder, awe, and magic associated with Christmas into … Continue reading The Advent of Love
Matthew Root 