Lately, I've been thinking about Epiphany, reflecting on the season and the use of the word. I went looking in the most popular source of information that I know of, Wikipedia.
“Generally the term is used to describe scientific breakthrough, religious, or philosophical discoveries (defined earlier as experiences of sudden and striking realization), but it can apply in any situation in which an enlightening realization allows a problem or situation to be understood from a new and deeper perspective” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphany_(feeling)).
The article goes on to say that initially, the word referred to insight through the divine, but that today the concept may or may not include a connection to God. However, most people still believe that the fundamental nature of an epiphany is that it is a supernatural event that causes new insight.
Whew!
Well, the season of Epiphany is undoubtedly about something supernatural. First, there is the coming of the wise men from the East. That is followed by the Baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan. There he hears the voice of the Father and sees the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove. From there, Jesus, at twelve years old, goes to the Temple at Jerusalem, and then, of course, there are the miracles: the changing of water into wine, the healing of a leper, the centurion’s servant; and the calming of the sea. Then, to wrap it all up, we have readings about the final coming of the Son of God, in power and great glory.
Many different things—yet they are tied together by one common theme. They all seem to be a “supernatural event that causes new insight.” They are all a way of showing, shining forth, the “Epiphany” of the glory of Jesus Christ, the Word of God, made flesh.
On Epiphany itself, we witness the coming of the wise men.
When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the East to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East and are come to worship him.
Those learned travelers (actually, we know very little about them) came first to Jerusalem, the first place to look for the new-born Jewish King. But, they are directed further on, to Bethlehem, and it was a strange sort of King they found: a little child, with Mary, his mother, and they fell down and worshipped him.
A remarkable scene, really. What was there about the manger scene to suggest the divinity, the kingship, and the sacrificial destiny of the Infant: How was divine glory showing there? It was, I think, glory visible only to the eyes of faith: faith to see in a helpless infant, who cannot even speak, the Almighty Word of God; faith to see the King of Kings, and Lord of all the worlds, in a swaddled baby, who cried for mother’s milk.
Remarkable certainly, but that is the work of faith for us all. Where is he that is born King of the Jews? Where is the Son of God, who comes to save us? Where is that Bread of Life for whom our spirits faint? Faith wants us to find him in the everyday “mangers” of our lives. Faith calls us to find the Word of God in human words; to taste the life of God in bread and wine; to see the Son of God in one another.
Maybe it was the day you bathed your first grandchild. Or a simple conversation with a friend. Perhaps it was the moment you believed your life was sacred, holy, and acceptable to God; or the time you sat at the bedside of someone who was dying, and you experienced the joy that death is not the end. Maybe it was in the coffee you drank this morning.
Our natural selves lust for the spectacular, the novel, the entertaining, the compelling. We want something new, some “gimmick,” something that promises what we see as success. But faith always calls us back, to work out our salvation in the ordinary, everyday life of Christian fellowship, the disciplined routines of Christian worship, prayer, study, and works of Christian charity.
I pray that, through faith, you see God again today and all through this Epiphany season.