Christmas has one more glorious day: the Twelfth Day. Jesus is born, angels have appeared, shepherds come to Bethlehem, and now the wise make it to worship the new King.
The creche is complete at last as is our feast. We end in twelve . . . and that is fitting. We will, after all, end history with Twelve Patriarchs and Twelve Apostles and end this holy season after twelve full days of celebration. Yet a glorious, super-abundant God finishes one good thing just to start the next. All the way to Candlemas after the feast of Epiphany, the churches of the world encourage jollification.
We work and play in holiday times. We turn our minds to the triumph of the Church, victory in Jesus, and the beauties of the cosmos and the paradise to come.
If times of Advent and Lent must come before Jesus shows us the entire finished work, the Church reminds us that the fast is for the feast. The Church, after all, gave us more holidays than most of our workplaces or the state!
Yet still this feast, my personal favorite, is finishing up and that is bittersweet. It makes me thirsty for more, though I know that I cannot stay here. There is good to cleaning up the decorations and doing some deep cleaning. Yet still it would be the greatest wonder if having gained Twelve, we can stay under the rule of the wise: apostles, patriarchs, and King Jesus on the throne. That would be the best finish and it is surely coming.
Jesus says: “It is finished” on the Cross, but the phrase also occurs in Revelation:
6 And he also said, “It is finished! I am the Alpha and the Omega—the Beginning and the End. To all who are thirsty I will give freely from the springs of the water of life. 7 All who are victorious will inherit all these blessings, and I will be their God, and they will be my children.
8 “But cowards, unbelievers, the corrupt, murderers, the immoral, those who practice witchcraft, idol worshipers, and all liars—their fate is in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”
Jesus completed His work on Earth by giving up His life on the Cross, but the day is coming when we will all see the total work Jesus finished.
As my dad says at the end of a visit or any party: “All good things . . . ” and we know to fill in “must come to an end.” This is true in time. Jesus came and then He finished His work. All good things . . . but Jesus was not just man (though Jesus was fully human), Jesus was God. When He finished His work, Jesus made possible this hope: we can inherit blessings that will never end.
God will be our God and we will be God’s children!
He has taught us to thirst and will provide springs of waters of life.
Note, however, that if we sate ourselves, then we will never be thirsty for that good water. Cowards save their lives and so lose the life to come. The corrupt sell their morals for money and so get their reward now and have none in the Kingdom. Every vice we use to avoid the real world, finding false gods, doing tricks, refusing reality for our fantasies, will damn us.
If we will not thirst, then the living water of life will be to us a fiery lake of burning sulfur. To the sated man even honey is bitter and the water that should give life will give death if we demand it. Everyone can say “no” and God is good, so “no” means “no.”
The best news is that reason, experience, and beauty can unite now and we can avoid such a fate. If we have spent our lives refusing to feast or fast, refusing to become thirsty and drink the living water, there is still time. As I write this, there is still time for me. As you read, there is time for you. Let’s keep the feast one time well and like the wise men bow to reality and find His rule, given to us by Twelve, this blessed Twelfth Night.
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