January 2011 Sketchings:

“EPIPHANY APPEARING!”

Hidden in the days after Christmas and before the New Year gets traction is a date to which almost no one pays much, if any, attention.

Sometime, somebody picked January 6 to be the “Day of Epiphany”, the date when the wise men, sages from the East, supposedly showed up at the “house where Jesus was.” January 6 also marks the date when those 12 Days of Christmas are over.

This twelfth day of Christmas almost always falls on a weekday, so it gets largely ignored in the bigger scheme of worship. That’s why we often miss reading the story, singing “We Three Kings of Orient Are” and generally getting the meaning of this part of Jesus’ birth saga.

Epiphany (which means “appearing” or “manifesting”) is the day and a time when we mark the arrival of those “wise” guys (we say three, but the Bible really doesn’t tell us) from the east finally showed up with their gifts. They were late, you see. They came with only a few facts and not even enough information to know their ultimate destination. They came depending on a miracle of science (the star) that no one understands or can adequately explain. After their initial excitement they ended up asking directions from a King, trying to work within the existing political system.

When they found Jesus they had gifts. Gold, frankincense and myrrh. Impractical things, really. Costly stuff that foretells death, strange gifts to leave with a tired young mother and a frazzled surrogate father who are trying to make sense out of life without any comforts of their own home.

Having deposited these dangerous, ominous, beautiful gifts they slip away. They leave by a different route than the one they came by having figured out (by God’s grace) that the political powers aren’t happy about the possibility of another “king.” Apparently they make it home safe. The Bible doesn’t tell us. (You can read the whole story in Matthew 2.)

It seems that the whole purpose of the wise men’s coming is to add to the truth of Jesus’ birth and arrival in this world. To give testimony, even as un-named foreigners, that “This is God.” To “reveal” and “declare” that Jesus is the Son of God. It didn’t matter that they were late. It didn’t matter that the gifts were so unusual. It didn’t matter what the political climate might have been. It didn’t matter that they didn’t have all the facts. It didn’t matter that they didn’t linger long there. It didn’t matter that they would be among the first (the shepherds preceded them) of a long line of odd characters who would enter and pass through this newborn’s life.

Sometimes it feels these visitors from the east are very much like us. For, you see, we too often come wandering by to meet Jesus, late, with some enthusiasm, but few facts, little understanding, trying to figure out our journey but all the while thinking, “This is God!” “This is the Son of God!” “This is my Immanuel.”

That’s what makes “epiphany” – when we glimpse God. When we recognize the coming of God in our midst.

That makes every day a potential day of Epiphany – of coming to a more powerful understanding of God’s presence with us.

With that in mind, it might be just as well that January 6 is hidden somewhere at the end of the “12 Days of Christmas” or caught in broken New Year’s resolutions. It might be just as well that we don’t linger on this odd festival like we do Christmas and Easter.

It might be just as well because it opens up the possibility, hopefully the reality, of every day being a time for God to become real, for God to work miracles and for us to say, “This is God, Immanuel, ‘God with us.’”

T.O.M.