Each January we begin a new calender year with all the usual new year resolutions and good intentions. After a joyful and calorie filled Christmas season, we are often in the mood to repent and start a fresh dietary discipline.

After a few weeks we may well find that we want to do what is right & good, but often find that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. This fresh failure is piled on top of the old January blahs that are blamed on the lack of sunshine in our wintery sky. This results in a spiritual down time, a wasteland,that is often associated with the short spike of increase in the death rate that occurs each Jan/Feb.It is all part of the big annual cycle that washes over us each year.But is this all inevitable? Has it been ordained that this dull period shall blanket us just as the snow blankets the ground we walk on each winter?

The Christian Church proclaims that after the Christmas season,comes the season of Epiphany. A time when we celebrate that this Jesus child, who has been born, is now revealed as the coming saviour of the world. The wise men proclaim to us that we have a reason to celebrate for Good News has come. God, the almighty creator, the giver of life, has come into our world to be with us and to show us the way. He has come to give us new life. Why is it than that January is not more celebration? Why is this joy lost on so many each January? Could it be that it is precisely because we have not recognized this child and the meaning of the Christmas gift that we have been given. We have not learned to unwrap the present we have been given and so it stays hidden under the tree that has so brightly proclaimed the coming of our gifts. Will we unwittingly throw it out with the rest of the torn wrappings of our lives as we clean up after the Christmas season and take down our Christmas tree? The Lord's message is that He has come to be with us, to love us, to show us the way. That He is here, now, even today to be with us in an intimate way. He reaches out to us with spiritual signs, small gentle messages, that we need to be alert to, and pay attention to. Like short bursts of sunshine on a cloudy day, that break through and that tell us the sun is still shining, the Lord breaks through our January blahs and gives us the reason to be joyful. These short epiphany moments point us toward what God would have us do this new year. They show us the way to go and if we follow the leading of these bright spots(stars) we will discover that the Holy Spirit empowers our spirits; so that we are strong,not in our strength alone, but by God's strength working in us. It is through the work of the Spirit that this annual period is thereby transformed from a time of January blahs to a time of new hope and discovery, the beginning of a newstage on our spiritual journey. We will no longer need to escape, for the Lord will be leading us by a different road, that will lead us towardthe glorious life He has come to give us.

This year I invite you to take time to look for the stars, the signs that God has put into your sky. To listen for His still small voice and to discover the Epiphany of His coming into your life in a new way. Be wise, and look for the coming of the Christ, who has come to give you new life, new hope, new joy, that will last forever.

If you need help in this venture, come and see us,for we are fellow pilgrims on the way. The way of Jesus Christ,the Lord.

Wishing you God's epiphany blessings.
Rev. Tijs, at St. Giles Presbyterian Church.

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