{"id":1154,"date":"2009-01-05T16:41:19","date_gmt":"2009-01-05T16:41:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2009\/01\/honoring-christs-baptism-feast.php"},"modified":"2009-01-05T16:41:19","modified_gmt":"2009-01-05T16:41:19","slug":"honoring-christs-baptism-feast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/01\/honoring-christs-baptism-feast","title":{"rendered":"Honoring Christ’s Baptism: Feast Marks End of Christmas Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Rev. Rick Lawson hates the sight of discarded Christmas trees in the gutter as he drives home from church on Christmas Day. He winces at the day-after rush to the stores.
\n“Nothing is more shocking to me,” says Lawson, dean of St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral in Salt Lake City. “So many people see it as the end of the festivities, but in the church it is just the beginning of a celebratory season.”
\nFor many branches of Christianity, that season culminates on Jan. 6, which is known variously as Epiphany, or Twelfth Night. Taken from the Greek for “manifestation,” Epiphany began in the Eastern Orthodox Church in the third century to honor Jesus’ baptism. In that tradition, the Epiphany service includes a blessing of water as a symbol of renewal and regeneration. Individual members can take some of the blessed water to their homes to drink and to use for healing.
\nThe Roman Catholic Church and, later, several Protestant churches, shifted the focus to the story of the magi, the wisemen from the East who followed a bright star to the manger and brought gifts to baby Jesus. Today, these faiths use the day to celebrate Jesus’ introduction to the world beyond Judaism.
\nSome faiths, such as the Episcopal Church, observe Epiphany with the Eucharist and special prayers on the actual date. Episcopalians don’t put the wisemen in their creche until then.
\n“O God, by the leading of the star you manifested your only son to the peoples of the
\nearth,” says this year’s prayer in the Episcopal liturgy. “Lead us, who know you now by faith, to your presence, where we may see your glory face to face.”
\nBut others move their observance to the Sunday before Jan. 6.
\n“For us, it is a time to celebrate Christ being revealed to all the world,” says the Rev. Annemarie Burke of Mt. Tabor Lutheran Church in Salt Lake City. “He came first to the Jewish people, then to all the nations as symbolized by the magi, people from the East.”
\nOn that day, Burke says, “Lutherans also focus on the light of Christ symbolized by the star.”
\nIn Mexico, the day is called El Dia De Reyes, or Wise Men’s Day. Children believe that the three magi will deliver presents to them so they leave their shoes out on the night of Jan. 5.
\nIn America, however, Epiphany is fading from public consciousness. Beginning Jan. 5, for example, Utahns are expected to strip their Christmas trees of all ornamentation and place them in the parking strip nearest their houses for pickup by trash crews.
\n“We don’t plan our schedules around religious holidays, ” says Lorna Vogt, associate director of sanitation for the county. “We have 80,000 homes we pick up and that’s when most residents put their trees out.”
\nThat’s too bad for Christians whose celebration doesn’t end until Epiphany.
\n“That’s the day we bring to an end 12 days of Christmas, undecorate the tree and turn our focus to Christ’s ministry,” Lawson says. “The rest of the world is all going secular.
\nIt’s very sad.”
\nThe Salt Lake Tribune – January 5, 2009
\npstack@sltrib.com
\nTo see more of The Salt Lake Tribune, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http:\/\/www.sltrib.com.
\nCopyright (c) 2009, The Salt Lake Tribune
\nDistributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
\nFor reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Rev. Rick Lawson hates the sight of discarded Christmas trees in the gutter as he drives home from church on Christmas Day. He winces at the day-after rush to the stores. “Nothing is more shocking to me,” says Lawson, dean of St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral in Salt Lake City. “So many people see it…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nHonoring Christ's Baptism: Feast Marks End of Christmas Season<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/01\/honoring-christs-baptism-feast\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Honoring Christ's Baptism: Feast Marks End of Christmas Season\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Rev. Rick Lawson hates the sight of discarded Christmas trees in the gutter as he drives home from church on Christmas Day. He winces at the day-after rush to the stores. “Nothing is more shocking to me,” says Lawson, dean of St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral in Salt Lake City. “So many people see it…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/01\/honoring-christs-baptism-feast\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-01-05T16:41:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"nsymmonds\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Honoring Christ's Baptism: Feast Marks End of Christmas Season","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/01\/honoring-christs-baptism-feast","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Honoring Christ's Baptism: Feast Marks End of Christmas Season","og_description":"The Rev. Rick Lawson hates the sight of discarded Christmas trees in the gutter as he drives home from church on Christmas Day. He winces at the day-after rush to the stores. “Nothing is more shocking to me,” says Lawson, dean of St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral in Salt Lake City. “So many people see it…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/01\/honoring-christs-baptism-feast","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2009-01-05T16:41:19+00:00","author":"nsymmonds","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/01\/honoring-christs-baptism-feast","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/01\/honoring-christs-baptism-feast","name":"Honoring Christ's Baptism: Feast Marks End of Christmas Season","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-01-05T16:41:19+00:00","dateModified":"2009-01-05T16:41:19+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/01\/honoring-christs-baptism-feast#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/01\/honoring-christs-baptism-feast"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/01\/honoring-christs-baptism-feast#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Honoring Christ’s Baptism: Feast Marks End of Christmas Season"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2","name":"nsymmonds","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","caption":"nsymmonds"},"description":"Nicole Symmonds is Beliefnet\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Prayer editor and also covers Christianity. A New Yorker by birth but a Floridian by tenure, Nicole graduated from Florida A&M University with a B.S. in Public Relations and a minor in Sociology. She moved to NY to pursue a career in journalism which started at In Style magazine. There she learned the ropes of magazine reporting, researching, and writing\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand became exponentially more stylish. But what seemed like a deep interest in fashion and entertainment would soon be revealed as merely the vehicle that moved her closer to discovering her purpose, writing and covering matters of the Christian faith. While in her purpose-driven vehicle she can be found traveling between Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens for life, work and worship, respectively. From fashion to faith and the journey isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t over yet\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/nsymmonds"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1154\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}