¹⁴And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. ¹⁵(John testified to him and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.'”) ¹⁶From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. -John 1:14-16

I remember a church family retreat at the Presbyterian camp near our community (shout out to Camp Johnsonburg!). In my memory, it’s autumn. I remember clowns. It was one of the few retreats where an outside group came and participated in our activities. This group was a clowning group. One of the clowns had a pewter pitcher full of water and there was a clear glass vase on the table. The clowns told a series of stories and after each story, the clown with the pitcher would pour water into the vase. The kicker was that each time he poured the water, you thought the pitcher was emptied. He poured until the pitcher was empty, but then he would come back and there would be water again. He never left the room or our line of view, so it seemed like magic.

I know how the trick works now, because I googled it as an adult (actually, I was looking it up to see if I could replicate it for a children’s message). But as a kid, I marveled. As grown-ups, it’s easy to look up how the trick works. At some point, we just assume there must be a trick. It’s hard – almost impossible – to imagine magic really could exist. I think of Howard Thurman’s essay “Magic All Around Us.” He wrote “When have you noticed the color of the sky? When have you looked at the shape and place of a tree?”

Christmas invites us to marvel, as Mary treasured and pondered things in her heart. Beyond Christmas into the season of Epiphany, we are invited to imagine how ordinary time still gives us space to pause and marvel without trying to explain how it works. Grace isn’t really magic – at least, not like the parlor tricks we can look up on the internet – but there is a special something about grace that sparks the imagination. “I seek new levels of awareness,” Thurman writes, “of the meaning of the commonplace.”

When we create space to marvel, we make more room to notice how God keeps pouring into us, grace upon grace. And the grace never runs out. Thanks be to God!

Rev. Rebecca Mallozzi, Faith Presbyterian Church, Emmaus, PA