Today we finish our celebration of Christmas with the Feast of the Epiphany. We started with the comfort and closeness of Mary and Elizabeth, we have hopefully spent time with family and friends, focused on those nearest to us. But that is not where Christmas ends. The ending has us looking outwards, to the wide world with all its uncertainty and even danger.
Much as he loved his parents, and they him, Jesus did not come for their benefit alone. As Isaiah foretold, Jesus’ coming was for all people. The story of three “wise men” coming from the furthest parts of the world, reflects the fact that Jesus’ presence rippled out to affect everyone. Even as a baby he is made visible everywhere and to everyone.
The implication for us is that we also can’t stay in the comfortable certainties of our domestic environment. We are called to go out and show the new reality in whatever places we may be.
There is an exact parallel with the Mass. That ends with the words (in Latin), “ite missa est” – “go out” – in our current slightly elaborated translation, “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord”. This conclusion is so important that the name we give to our Eucharistic celebration is taken from that phrase: missa/mass. Our most intimate sharing in the life of Jesus, by eating and drinking his body and blood, doesn’t finish in a spirit of internal contemplation and individual blessing. It finishes with the instruction, the demand, to go out.
So for Christmas, we take the comfort, the rest and recuperation, of our holiday season and now reengage with the challenges of another year. We will face difficulties and successes, blessings and sorrows, but we face them knowing that we are not alone, we have a God who is with us, who is one of us.