Seeking Epiphany

Here is my most recent newsletter article:

Seeking Epiphany

“Only in the darkness can you see the stars.”

                      -- MLK (and probably lots of other people, too)

Skeletons of trees line the sides of the road; the winter has turned bitter cold.  Gift wrap has been buried in confetti, which is now buried in the local landfill.  The kids have already broken or gotten bored of some of their toys.  Christmas and New Year’s have passed, and we are faced now with the cold dark of winter, school- and work-weeks that are actually five days long, and very little to anticipate…

What can the church teach us about this time of year?  A lot, actually.  The season of Advent encouraged us to wait with anticipation, and now the season of Christmas, which lasts until January 6^th, teaches us that the story does not end with the birth.  Indeed, the Christmas story gets dark and cold after that beloved manger scene, with the slaughter of the innocents, the fleeing of Jesus’ family to Egypt to escape Herod’s wrath, the continued tyranny of the Roman empire.  The wise men have barely arrived to give the Lord their gifts when the scene turns from joyous December to frigid January.  The bright hope is easily dashed if one dwells too long there.

Enter the season of Epiphany!  January 6^th marks the end of Christmas, but the beginning of a long Season of Light, a celebration of the revelations that this God incarnate, this presence of the holy among us, can bring.   It starts with a fast-forward to Jesus’ 30^th year, when even he – God on earth – got baptized, was renewed and repented of sin (a word that can mean a great number of things!).  He was declared then to be God’s beloved, just as we each are declared to be beloved of God at our own baptisms.

In Epiphany we are reminded by crazy John the Baptist to prepare the way of the Lord.  We hear of the callings of the disciples to drop everything and follow Jesus; we are invited to the baffling Transfiguration of Jesus on the mountaintop.  These strange and wondrous – unbelievable yet in some ways truthful – stories invite us to think upon light and all its strange facets in these dark months.   

We can celebrate this season by being on the lookout for the ways that light breaks through the darkness, where a spark of inspiration, joy, or laughter suddenly lights our hearts.  With our children, we can help them recognize these as God-sightings; like shooting stars, they are easy to miss, but if you look for them, they’re more common than you think!

As we dwell in the dark, cold months, we have the memories of a happy Christmas and the promise of a brightened future; keeping our eyes wide open, we take steps toward getting closer to our God, our light, the hope that we celebrated being born at Christmas. 

Happy Epiphany!