January 18 is the Feast of the Confession of Peter. Not a feast about a great man, but about a great answer to a great question: ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ The Father revealed it. Peter said it. The Church has been asked to keep saying it ever since.
The Baptism of Our Lord. The Father speaks, the Spirit descends, the heavens open. The Father’s words at the Jordan — ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased’ — are the fulfillment of Isaiah’s Servant Song. The Epiphany season’s question is answered before it has properly begun.
The Season of Epiphany begins with the Father’s voice at the Jordan and ends with the Father’s voice on the mountain. Between those two declarations, the whole of Jesus’ public ministry is the answer to the question Epiphany raises: who is this? The season’s answer: he is the Son.
January 6 is the Epiphany — one of the seven Principal Feasts of the Anglican year. Where Christmas celebrates the Word becoming flesh, the Epiphany celebrates his manifestation to the nations. The Magi were not the destination of the Gospel. They were its first sign.
The world begins its new year with resolutions. The Church begins it with a name. January 1 is the Feast of the Circumcision and Holy Name of Our Lord — the eighth day of Christmas, when the infant Jesus was circumcised and given the name that means salvation. Not a resolution. A person.
December 28: Feast of the Holy Innocents. Four days after the angels sang, children are dead in Bethlehem. The Church does not move this grief to a more convenient time. It places it here, in the middle of Christmas, because that is where it actually belongs.