Timket is the greatest festival of the year, falling on 19 January, just two weeks after the Ethiopian Christmas. It is actually a three-day affair, beginning on the eve of Timket with dramatic and colorful processions. The following morning, the great day itself, Christ’s baptism In the Jordan River by John the Baptist is commemorated. The third day is devoted to the Feast of St. Michael, the archangel, one of Ethiopia’s most popular saints. Since October and the end of the rains, the country dries up steadily. The sun blaze down from a clear blue sky and the festival of Timket always takes place in glorious weather.
Enormous effort is put into the occasion. Tej and tella (Ethiopian meat and beer) are brewed, special bread is baked, and the fat-tailed African sheep are fattened for slaughter. Gifts are prepared for the children and new clothes purchase, old clothes mended and laundered. Everyone – men, women, and children - appears resplendent for three-day celebration. Dressed in dazzling white traditional dress, the locals provide a dramatic contrast of the jewel colors of the ceremonial velvets and stains of the priest’s robe and sequined velvet umbrellas. On the eve of 18 January, the priests remove the tabots from each church and bless the water of the pool or river where the next day’s celebration will take place. It is the tabot (symbolizing the Ark of the Covenant containing the Ten Commandments) rather than the church building which is consecrated, and it is accorded extreme reverenced. Not to be desecrated by the gaze of the layman, the engraved widen or stone slab scarred under layers of rich cloth.
In Addis Ababa, many churches bring their tabots to Jan Meda (the horse racing course of imperial days) accompanied by priests bearing prayer sticks and sistra, the ringing of bells and blowing of trumpets and swimming bronze censers from which wisps of incense smoke escape into the evening air. The tabots rest in their special tents in the meadow, each hoisting a proud banner depicting the church’s saint in front.