Faith Works 1-6-18

Faith Works 1-6-18

Jeff Gill

 

Revelation to Genesis or the other way 'round

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January 6 is the "twelfth day of Christmas" famed in song and story.

 

You know, partridges and pear trees and lords a' leaping.

 

In some cultures and religious traditions, the Feast of the Epiphany is the gift-giving occasion. Which makes sense, as we mark in the Christian calendar with this day the arrival of the Magi, the "wise men from the East" who come bearing gifts.

 

In modern American usage, we've mushed together St. Nicholas' commemoration on December 6 and Epiphany on January 6 into the Christmas Day I suspect most of you had, with the gifts and the feasting and the celebration all focused on December 25.

 

January 6 has quite a bit to commend it to our attention, I'd argue. Even if your congregation is not a liturgical church with the calendar of the year marking such dates, it's a blessing on at least two practical fronts, let alone a solid theological one.

 

For one thing, Epiphany is the close of what we can hold onto tight as our churchly season of Christmastide, even as all the commercial decorations and retail intrusion rudely shifted to Valentine's Day stuff as Christmas Eve came to an end. In a sense, we get Christmas back. Let's make use of that!

 

And Epiphany is that second stage of realization, after the baby is born, following the initial amazement that any baby brings, to where the parents and family and friends and any wandering shepherds in the neighborhood start thinking about the implications of this new arrival. Where shall we go to protect the child? How can we best care for our baby? Do we have enough diapers?

 

Once the obligatory and familial events of Christmas are over, we have the chance to take a deep breath, and reflect. Maybe New Year's did that for you, but often that's busy and frenetic itself. Epiphany invites us, before we put the manger set away (and some of us don't take down our tree until Jan. 6 for this very reason), to take a pause and consider what this all means. Has meant. Could mean.

 

Even so, that's my practical advice about Epiphany. Theologically, it has a very deep and profound meaning in that the word literally means "manifestation." The appearing of a promised one from God for humankind, the presence in the flesh of God's own child, foretold in Israel but known in various forms in cultures near and far . . . and so, the Magi. These wise men (we say three because they bring three gifts, but it's not clear what size of a caucus they constituted) were not Hebrews, they were not from the Promised Land, they didn't know the Temple or Herod or the high priests, they just followed the signs God gave them, and arrived on the scene just as a more intimate drama was playing out in a small provincial village on the edge of the Roman Empire.

 

So the first epiphany was to them, bringing Gentile and Jew, East and West together at the crib where the baby Jesus lay. And we mark this Epiphany feast ever since because our own eyes need to have revealed to them that God is more than spirit, not just an ethereal idea, beyond mere potential or belief to being present, here, now – a manifested God here on earth.

 

The Bible we Christians use ends with the book of Revelation. It, too, is an English attempt to translate a Greek word that is very close to Epiphany: Apocalypse. We've come to think of "apocalypse" as meaning a destructive ending, but in fact its root is more one of "unveiling." Revelation is an unveiling to John on Patmos Island of the destiny of all things. Epiphany was a revelation, an apocalypse in miniature, an unveiling for human perception of how God intends to be involved in creation. Whether you read about the Magi and a baby in Matthew's gospel, or a Lamb and a wedding banquet in John's Revelation, you can pick up the theme fairly quickly: be ready for the Lord to appear in unexpected and amazing forms, sometimes through an angel with a world-ending trumpet, and sometimes as the host inviting the unworthy and undeserving to regal seats at a heavenly table.

 

I rejoice at closing out my Christmas season with Epiphany; may your celebrations at home and beyond make you ready to see how God is ready to be revealed in your life!

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; tell him about your year ahead as you see it unveiled this week at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.