Watching for the Morning of January 1, 2017

The Sunday in Christmas

Oprah Winfrey seems to be everywhere on television promoting Weight Watchers. For the society around us, Christmas is over. The feasting and sweetness is finished; now it’s time to lose weight. And if Christmas is only about gifts, then once the gifts are opened the holiday is finished. Drag the tree out to the curb. Take down the lights. All that remains is football.

But if Christmas is about the gifts of God come to the world in the child of Bethlehem, then there is much more to celebrate.

Sunday continues the Christmas Season. It is that wonderful oasis between the feast of the Nativity and the Epiphany of our Lord. The community gathers again in the aura of that silent night to hear the continuation of the story begun on Christmas Eve. The child greeted by the…