While I was beginning to prepare today's homily, my wife asked, "What does the word epiphany mean?" Not that she was unaware of the answer, but that she was asking in order to give me a better idea of where to go with my homily preparation.
Given that epiphany isn't a word we typically use in everyday conversation, I thought that looking into it might add something to what I might share with you this morning. So I avoided the temptation to say, "You know where the dictionary is. Look it up." Not that I'm mean or anything like that. It's just the schoolteacher in me always wanting to say "sit down back there, and spit out that gum." So instead of "look it up for yourself," I got up from the computer and went to the book shelf.
After all, what better way is there find out about something than to explore its meaning—and not just the dictionary definition only but the aspect of meaning that informs us where we live it out on a daily basis? So I scrapped my original plans for the homily, which wasn't such a bad deal for you since in its nascent state my homily plans were still based loosely on last year's notes and on the bad dream I had from eating undercooked black-eyed peas late Thursday night.
My Random House American College Dictionary, which I've somehow managed to keep in my possession for the past 39 years, defines Epiphany as "A Christian festival, observed on January 6, commemorating the manifestation of Christ to the gentiles in the persons of the Magi." It's important that we not stop there, though this definition, aside from the date being moved, gives us the most basic information. The definition goes on to describe an epiphany as the appearance or manifestation of a divine being, and the more up-to-date dictionaries add a common usage where we may speak of an epiphany as a sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something.
Historically, and from the perspective of the prophet Isaiah, the coming of the long-awaited Messiah was indeed something to get excited about; he was to be the light that would brilliantly contrast the darkness of the past. It was he who was to come and free the captives and offer justice to the impoverished. Therefore, if you step into the shoes of a first-century Palestinian Jew, it might take an unusual amount of vision or faith to see the great Messianic light in the face of a newborn infant lying not too far the donkeys and oxen.
In fact, in the way that we are conditioned to interpret things both historically and now, it would have been nothing less than a practically impossible stretch of the imagination to have identified Jesus lying in a feed trough as a king. An image I'll never be shed comes to me from my childhood. In the 6th grade, say around 1971 or 72, a classmate who sat across from me, and whose father was a Missionary Baptist preacher, announced loudly to the entire class that "poor little baby Jesus was born in a hog trough." The teacher nearly fell out of her chair and the class had such a stir that several students had to be disciplined. Well, a hog trough it wasn't but in reality it wasn't far from it.
Epiphany has the power to speak something to us beyond "We Three Kings." That is, it can speak beyond its primary definition as an annual feast that commemorates a brightly starlit night in Bethlehem when mysterious visitors came from the east to gaze upon a newborn king. When we take the word epiphany in its latter definition, as a sudden perception of the essential nature or meaning of something, it has the power to allow us to see Christ essentially in things and events, or where he sheds light upon them and gives them meaning.
Just as the darkness of the Bethlehem night was brightened by the presence of Jesus the Christ, our world and our lives today can still be brightened by the same light, who in his humble surroundings at Bethlehem certainly didn't appear at all to be what he was essentially or really. In an interesting parallel we often still have to reinterpret appearances to see the great light—to see the presence of Christ, but there's nothing hokey about interpreting or reinterpreting experience. We do it all the time without giving it a second thought.
I count it as a wonderful way to begin the New Year to celebrate that a great light has come into the world—a light and a presence that has the power to transform every situation, a light that still has the power to touch and to heal every pain and difficulty while brightening the perceived darkness of life.
Inasmuch as Epiphany is about the manifestation of Christ, it's also about the eyes of faith being able to perceive his presence in the world. Often our world and the events of life tempt us to doubt—we tend to go by surface appearances alone and not look much further. It is a condition of modern humanity that if we were to witness a baby being born in a stable, we would likely not perceive royalty or divinity.
Faith doesn't suggest that we discount appearances or that we live in some sort of fantasy world. On the contrary faith demands that we be realists about the situations of life and of the world in which we live, situations that include hardships as well as its joys. Nor does faith suggest that we look beyond appearances, rather it demands that we look deep into them to discover the meaning they hold in their depths.
Faith in the appearance of Christ demands that we look at life face to face, that we see what is really there—without fanciful imaginations—and that we believe in the power of God to permeate all things. In the true Epiphany experience God manifests divinity to us in the most common but unexpected ways. Indeed epiphany is full of surprise—faith makes it possible for us to see what is really present in our midst. It makes it possible to see Christ among us in many and varied ways.
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