Still Christmas

Early January is a strange time. While the secular world is taking down Christmas decorations and telling us "The party's over", a large portion of the religious community is still celebrating. This past weekend, we celebrated the Epiphany, when the wise men finally arrived at the manger, bringing the very first "Christmas presents". Tomorrow is the Julian Calendar Christmas, when the Russian Orthodox community celebrates Jesus birth, and the Spanish community celebrates "King's Day". The Catholic Church has deemed Christmas a season that begins on December 25 and doesn't end until we celebrate the Baptism of the Lord, which this year falls on January 12. 

In the hours, days and weeks that followed Jesus' birth, God revealed the true identity of his son to only a handful of people, but each represented a significant portion of the overall population. As I see it, the shepherds were representative of the poor, working class people. The wise men were wealthy kings, representing the rich. Then, during his presentation, God revealed to a man named Simeon that this baby was the savior. He also revealed this to a woman named Anna. He revealed his son to the poor, the rich, a man and a woman. What I find significant is that a woman was included in this small group of special people that got a "sneek peek" at who he was to become.  It is significant because in Jesus's time and culture women were considered to be second class citizens. They could not own property and were often considered property themselves. All public decisions were made by men. Women were supposed to stay mostly at home and men were not supposed to greet women in public. Yet, out of the thousands of people moving about in Bethlehem at the time, God chose only a handful of people to introduce to his son, and one of them was a woman. God showed that he felt that women were important, and by revealing his son to the poor, the rich, a man and a woman, He said, "I have come for ALL of you."