I'm Not Letting Go This Year

New years eve I gingerly removed my porcelain “cabin scene” from the top of the chest, placing each fragile piece in foam containers for storage for another ten months. Doing so, reminded me of a sales clerk’s comment when I had asked how his Christmas sales had gone.  “Thank god, Christmas is over.”  I gave pause, as I took a porcelain piece up to study it’s intricacy.  “Like most people, do I also believe that the Christmas season has drawn to a close?”  “Will all the preparations and fanfare of Christmas fade into this 2015 calendar of another year?” I recoiled at the thought because, that very morning, during a time of devotion, I was reminded by the church calendar, an ever-present reminder of a different rhythm within the world around me, bidding me to take the Christmas story with me into the New Year. Six days into my new desk and wall calendars, after the cabin scene, garland and tree have come down and lights are put away and the ambient glow of Christmas has dimmed, Epiphany is celebrated. Hardly dimming in significance, the feast of Epiphany commemorates the events that first revealed Christ's identity to the world: the magi's adoration of the Christ child, the manifestation of Christ at his baptism, the first miracle at the wedding in Cana, among others. 

The arrival of the magi to the birthplace of Jesus was the first of many windows into the identity of the child born to Mary and Joseph. "After [the magi] had heard [Herod] the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother, Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route" Matthew 2:9-12. As it had been foretold in Isaiah 60:3, 6 nations came to his light and kings to the brightness of his dawn; they brought gold and frankincense and worshiped him. A new mystery was revealed in Jesus, and the story continued to unfold before the world.

With those who first saw the light of God in an unlikely stable, with those who saw water turned to wine by a wedding guest, and with those who saw the heavens open up and the Spirit descend at a rabbi's baptism, I believe the Christian story on the feast of Epiphany is that I am a part of a people with whom God is profoundly communicating. Like one of those who first journeyed to set their eyes on the Child, I am invited to see it all for myself. In so doing I am invited to participate in a story that takes me far beyond myself, even as it requires me to die to myself. But I also believe, Christ himself transforms my life and death, breathing something new where death stings and tears flow.

Jesus appeared on the scene of a people who had lived with God's silence for 400 years. There had not been a word from God since the prophet Malachi. The heavens were silent; but God was getting ready to proclaim the best of all news.  Into this wordless void, God not only spoke, but revealed the Word as flesh standing beside me, crying with me, and leading me home. Epiphany, like the Incarnation itself, reminds me that into ordinary days epiphany comes, so that even death itself cannot stop my uniting with Christ who has been revealed: The Christ Child appeared before the magi. The Son of God revealed himself in signs and wonders. The risen Christ stood among his startled disciples. And Christ the King will come again. There was a first Epiphany and there will be more to come. Christmas continues!