Between the massive pinnacles of Christmas and Easter lies the valley of Epiphany. This church season, one of the more underrated ones because of its location next to those behemoths, takes place in the frigid months of January and February. It’s a season that started Jan. 6, the day of Epiphany, a date that traditionally marks the coming of the Wise Men to the Christ child.

The season of Epiphany — the season we currently reside — is marked by the good news of God’s grace coming to outsiders; to Gentiles, nonbelievers, the last people you would expect it to come. As a result, the season of Epiphany is a season in which the church gets to celebrate those mission workers who leave the comfort of all that is familiar to work in faraway countries. Not all of those countries are destitute and forlorn. But to leave all that you have known for another place and another culture is no small sacrifice.

Epiphany is also a time to recognize that mission is not just something that people do in faraway places. It is something we do right here in Farmville. Whether it is going on a mission trip sponsored by your church, packing food baskets at FACES, hammering another nail in a Habitat House, or contributing to Piedmont Senior Resources Santas for Seniors program, we are all in mission together. The Wise Men are not just a bunch of Middle Eastern fortune tellers gazing at the stars; they are all of us, they are each of us.

But the part that I love about this story is not just that these nonbelievers come to pay homage to Jesus. It is that they get to go home another way. Sure they do it to get away from nasty King Herod and his jealousy and the slaughter of the innocents that follow. But they get to go home another way, a direction given by God’s grace.

And because they get to go home another way, we do, too. Not the same old way. But a new way, directed, given and blessed by God. A new way marked by reaching out to someone else. A new way shown by thinking about something we have never thought before, that takes us into new arenas of service. A way that opens us up to people who are different. A way that opens up to expressing our faith that is different. A way that opens up to doing church that is different.

There are all kinds of exciting and joyous things that happen when we let God take us home another way. But we have to get moving first.

REV. DR. TOM ROBINSON is pastor of Farmville Presbyterian Church. His email address is robin216@embarqmail.com.