Well, happy 4th Day of Christmas. Did you know it was the 4th day of Christmas?
Many people mistakenly think that the “12 Days of Christmas” (which we sing about) are the 12 days leading up to Christmas, but actually they are the days between Christmas and Epiphany, which we will celebrate next Sunday.
So even though Christmas Day has come and gone, we are still in the midst of the 12 Days of Christmas.
That means the Christmas Season is still upon us, so we’re going to continue to enjoy singing Christmas songs and looking at all of these beautiful Christmas decorations this week and next Sunday, too, when we hear all about the 3 Wise Men.
Our Scripture reading from today’s lectionary, however, is not specifically about the Christmas story.
I know most of us want more to hear more stories about the BABY Jesus during the Christmas season, but there really aren’t many stories of Jesus’s childhood in the Bible.
If you read the Bible, you’ll see he’s born on Christmas…and, then (in the next chapter) BOOM, he’s already 12 years old!
What happened to all those years in between? What was Jesus doing?
Well, we don’t really know. And I actually kinda like that we don’t know, because it implies to me that Jesus’s childhood was probably very ordinary, much like ours.
Jesus didn’t know he was the “Son of God” as little boy. He was just an ordinary kid.
And, that’s why his parents, Mary and Joseph, were so shocked and surprised when Jesus (as a 12 year old boy) was discussing theology with the Rabbis in the temple, because up until then, Jesus has been just an ordinary kid.
But, at the age of 12, he’s beginning to show signs of spiritual WISDOM, much beyond his years. He’s growing and changing.
Now, after this one story of Jesus at the age of 12, the Bible fast-forwards to Jesus at the age of 30! Again, we don’t really know what Jesus was doing between the ages of 12 and 30. The Bible doesn’t tell us.
These years are sometimes referred to as the “Lost Years of Jesus.”
And there are a lot of theories about what Jesus was doing in those years.
You can read books from world-renown theologians who claim that Jesus went to India and Nepal during those “lost years” and was exposed to Hinduism and Buddhism and Eastern spirituality.
This is all speculation, of course. No one knows for sure.
But, obviously, throughout his teenage years and throughout his twenties, Jesus was growing in spiritual wisdom and coming to a greater understanding his Divine Nature and his purpose for being.
He was “awakening.” He was rising in consciousness.
And, as the years of our lives go on, we, too, should be growing in spiritual understanding and rising in consciousness.
The 20th Century Christian mystic, Thomas Merton (the Trappist monk), once said, “If the ‘you’ of 10 years ago doesn’t consider the ‘you’ of today to be a heretic, you are not growing spiritually.”
What he meant was: We have to “let go” of old ways of thinking and being if we’re going to keep growing spiritually…if we’re going to keep growing in wisdom.
Today, as you know, is the very last Sunday of 2025, and spiritual teachers tell us that the end of one year and the beginning of another is a very powerful spiritual time for RENEWAL.
It’s about letting go of the old, so that we welcome in the new.
Some of you may be familiar with an ancient “end of year” tradition called the Burning Bowl.
The Burning Bowl is a sacred RITUAL of purification and renewal.
The purpose of this ritual is write down the things that are no longer serving us anymore and burn them, so that we don’t carry them into the new year.
We’re burning away the old to make way for the new.
So, my question for you today (on the last Sunday of the year) is: What are the things that are no longer serving you, that you do not wish to bring into the new year?
Maybe you’d like to release – burn away – thoughts of resentment, anger, jealousy or judgment. Maybe you’d like to let go of thoughts of worry, fear, lack or limitation.
Between now and New Year’s Day, I’d like to encourage you take some time alone with God – to enter into the Silence/the Kingdom of Heaven within you – and to set your intentions for the coming year.
You can write a new chapter or you can keep writing the same old story. The choice is yours. The power is within you.
For as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”
Wishing you all a very Happy New Year.
May it be so. Amen.
Here are three follow-up reflection questions:
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Spiritual Growth & Change
Looking back on your life, in what ways have your beliefs, assumptions, or understanding of God changed over time—and where might you be invited to release old ways of thinking so that deeper wisdom can emerge, as suggested by Thomas Merton? -
Letting Go & Renewal
As you stand at the threshold of a new year, what specific habits, emotions, or stories about yourself feel “no longer serving you,” and what would it look like—practically and prayerfully—to symbolically place them in a “burning bowl” and let them go? -
Inner Awakening & Intention
Reflecting on the idea that Jesus grew quietly and ordinarily before his awakening, how might God be inviting you to trust the slow, unseen work happening within you—and how does this resonate with the reminder from Ralph Waldo Emerson that what lies within you matters most?