Not a Thirteenth Day, but a Beginning

The twelve days of Christmas do not end with answers.
They end with a people gathered—marked by story, shaped by practice, learning how to live gently in a fractured world.

Then comes Epiphany.

“They set out for their own country by another road.”
— Matthew 2:12

Epiphany is not about arrival, but recognition.
Not possession, but response.

The Magi do not belong. They are not insiders. They do not have the right language or credentials. And yet they see what others miss. They follow a fragile light across borders, ask dangerous questions, and refuse to return to the old ways of power.

They encounter Christ—and then they move on, changed.

Broken Theology hears Epiphany as a warning against staying too long at the manger. The point of Christmas is not preservation, but transformation. God-with-us does not invite us to remain still, but to walk differently into the world we already inhabit.

If the twelve days have given us gifts—faith, courage, wisdom, justice, community—Epiphany asks what we will do with them.

Which road will we take now?
What loyalties will we loosen?
Where might light be breaking in beyond the places we feel safe?

Epiphany does not close Christmas.
It opens the year.

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May light unsettle you,
lead you past familiar roads—
and keep you human.