Tonight is Twelfth Night; but I wonder how many people know what this refers to? 'Isn't it a play by Shakespeare....? Something about misrule, the world turned upside down? Yes, but the reference is originally to the last day in the season of Christmas. 'Season of Christmas? what do you mean?
In the Christian calendar, Christmas is a season of twelve days, and today is the last of them. Tomorrow we begin the season of Epiphany- a difficult word, which means 'showing' or 'manifestation'.
Let's go back to basics. The Christian year has a shape to it; it starts in Advent, at the end of November, and climbs, as it were, to a mountain top for the twelve days of Christmas, after which it gently descends again through Epiphany, and some 'Ordinary Time' to Ash Wednesday, when Lent begins. Then a longer climb, over roughly six weeks, to the mountain top of the Easter season, where we stay for another six weeks till Pentecost, when we gently descend again through Ordinary Time till the beginning of Advent, when the whole process starts again. The climbs and descents are indicative of the importance of the season, rather than anything else, in the picture I have drawn.
It all has something to say about the life of Christ, the love of God, and our response to different points of his life. I wonder, as we begin a new season- Epiphany-, what God will show me? show you? How God will manifest Godself to me? to you? And are open to it? Today's gospel talks of Jesus being 'full of grace and truth'. May we apprehend at least some of that, be apprehended by grace and truth, so that any misrule, anything upside down in our lives and experience may be righted, and ourselves set on our feet, as on a rock .
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