Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ!

As I write this, the Twelve Days of Christmas is wrapping up and the Day of Epiphany is almost upon us. By the time you receive this, we will be fully into the span of weeks that bridges the gap between Christmas and Lent, what many liturgically-minded people call the season of Epiphany, or, more interestingly, one of two seasons of Ordinary Time in the church calendar.

And I get it. The craziness of the Christmas season is behind us. Lent and Easter are still a ways away. After everything that Advent and Christmas held, it is kind of nice for the church to have a baked-in rest time for pastors and lay leaders and congregants. But so much of this season is also anything other than ordinary. In the church world, it is this season where we encounter the Magi bringing their gifts to Christ! It is the season where Jesus is baptized, tempted, and transfigured! In the university context, it is the beginning of a new semester! Our campus is about to be inundated again with new and returning students and faculty, new course offerings, new sports seasons, and—because TLU would not be TLU without them—new squirrels hiding in the trees and throwing acorns at unsuspecting passersby.

This time, for the church and the academy, is anything but ordinary, no matter what name is attached to it and no matter how many times these stories have been told before.

Which brings me to my challenge to you: during this Epiphany season/Spring 2024 semester, expect and seek out the extraordinary. Do not let yourself become so inundated in routine and ordinariness that you no longer allow yourself to experience the newness of life springing up around you. Hear the story of Christ anew; jump into the waters of baptism alongside him, walk through the desert with him, and allow yourself to be transformed through him. And pray for our community at TLU to experience the extraordinary in real and joy-filled ways.

God is doing something in the world around us, and it is anything but ordinary. May we all seek to be a part of it.

—Pastor Wes