Epiphany 2008
Some words from our Isaiah reading: Chapter 60 v4: Lift up your eyes and look about you.
What is an epiphany?
It is a revelation of something divine. The phan part of the word comes from the same greek root as phantom and means something that appears – is revealed. An epiphany is something that appears for us – that is revealed to us.
And the Epiphany of our Lord is God showing us who Jesus – this Christmas child – really is.
In the orthodox churches, the epiphany is just as important a festival as Christmas – perhaps even more so. It begins with a feast day and the narrative that usually marks this feast day is the visit of the Magi to the young Jesus. In that narrative, which is rich in symbolism, we learn something of who this child really is – his kingship, his sacrifice, his death – as symbolised by the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. And that this revelation was made not to the Jews but to visitors from far away eastern lands – maybe that’s why the eastern churches love this festival so much.
That was THE Epiphany, but the bible is full of epiphanies – of instances in which God makes a revelation about himself. It’s not for nothing that the church both in the east and here in the west – devotes a whole season to Epiphany – not just a single feast day – and through this season the scripture readings that are set are there to help us to grasp who this Christmas child really is.
And today, each of our readings and poems contributes, in its own way, a revelation – each shows us, in some aspect, who this Jesus really is.
In the Clive Sansom poem, Jesus as seen through the eyes of Mary is described as the God-Child. In the Isaiah reading, we hear an ancient prophecy of the nation of God’s people lit up by the coming of the Holy One – ‘Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you’.
T S Eliot in that richly symbolic poem ’The Journey of the Magi’ finds that the epiphany leads not to an answer, but to a question – ‘were we led all that way for Birth or Death?’ The encounter with the infant Jesus was ‘satisfactory’ in contrast to the Kingdoms to which they returned ‘no longer at ease in the old dispensation’ – but what was it they really witnessed? ‘There was a birth certainly. We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death, But had thought they were different. This birth was Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death’.
Unlike the simple, joyful response of the shepherds, the Magi found this encounter puzzling, paradoxical.
In the reading from John’s gospel we hear of what is often referred to as the first miracle – Jesus changing water to wine at the wedding in Cana. Note that Mary is the one who persuades Jesus to bring about a divine solution to a man-made problem. Jesus – the bringer of the divine solution. Mary – the prompter, the persuader, the one of faith and hope.
A series of revelations – each shedding light on who this Jesus really is. But Epiphanies are not just for special people. Epiphanies are on offer from God to all of us. In the Epiphany Poem by Marianne Houston we glimpse how epiphany comes to everyone – shepherd, king, parking lot attendant, DJ, waitress – ‘let it be us – you and me – when we least expect it’ Epiphany is not something to that happened once in history when some wise men turned up to find Jesus – it is an ongoing process. God is in the ongoing business of revealing himself to us in our ordinary, daily lives.
Each of these examples is an encounter with Jesus, an epiphany or revelation of who he is, and an invitation to respond. And each encounter seems to leave a question mark – a tension – a dichotomy – a paradox. ‘Were we led all that way for Birth or Death?’
And we heard too from Matthew’s Colleague, as verbalised by An-Marie Dop: who, faced with Jesus’ invitation ‘come to me’ chooses not to accept, but to decline. ‘This life’s good enough’ he says. So the question posed by the epiphany – the encounter with Jesus – is a question posed to free beings with free wills.
What – for you – has been your most recent epiphany? How did God reveal something of himself to you, and what was your free-will response?
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Commentators – particularly Christian ones – bemoan the decline of religious teaching, the loss of traditional values, the collapse of the institutional church and all that kind of thing and it can easily make you quite depressed, particularly if you’re a worker for God, committed to the gospel of Jesus, and looking for signs of spiritual life. But the depression can be quickly overcome if when you realise that Epiphany isn’t some human initiative to reveal the nature of God – it’s his own initiative – and therefore it will happen – and it will go on happening. It’s not our job to create revelation – it’s our job to notice it happening, to interpret it, and to bring it to the attention of those who in the busyness of their lives might have missed it.
If your focus your eyes to see them – if you tune your ears to hear them – there are epiphanies going on all around us.
Some have good biblical precedent – like looking for stars – and I certainly sense a mind-blowing revelation of the glory of God whenever I gaze at the heavens. Last time I preached in the evening we all went outside afterwards and looked at Comet Holmes. This month’s comet is Tuttle but he’s nothing like as visible so I’m sorry there isn’t that same excitement this evening. But if ever you long for a revelation of God’s glory, just go out on a starlit night and look up.
But epiphanies can also be much more down to earth. As you may know three of us Sherlocks spent various afternoons, evenings and nights over Chrsitmas as volunteers in the Crisis Drinker’s shelter in London. Well that was certainly an epiphany – a revelation – but perhaps the most compelling revelation was that for many of these men and women who now fall into the inconvenient category of homeless or vulnerably housed, their life story is so very similar to any of ours, with the difference that circumstances – often something initially quite superficial – conspired to turn their lives upside down. It was often hard it tell the difference between volunteer and guest.
And the epiphany for me was the reminder that every individual I encountered was made in God’s image and was on God’s heart. I wonder if God had scheduled the nativity for this era, and not 2000 years ago, whether Jesus might have been born in a disused warehouse somewhere near the Elephant & Castle. God dwelling with his people – as the advent collect puts it – in great humility.
Whatever the salvation promised by God means, it means most to people such as these, or the people of Darfur, or of frightened people living in earshot of violent flare-ups in Kenya or Pakistan. Salvation of this kind is worth a long journey – is worth following a star for.
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These encounters – with humanity or with the grandeur of nature – are epiphanies. They show us what God is like.
What – for you – has been your most recent epiphany? How did God reveal something of himself to you?
If you’re feeling perhaps that you’re a bit short on Epiphanies at the moment and perhaps you can’t remember the last time you sensed a revelation from God, then be assured you’re not alone – and yet … and yet … this season of Epiphany assures us that revelation is God’s initiative – so it will happen – and it will go on happening. All we have to do is to retune our ears, and refocus your eyes, and then – perhaps when we least expect it – we shall see or hear something that God is doing – because Epiphany tells us he’s in the business of revealing himself, but we’ve just narrowed our focus to the point where we miss it.
And how will you know it’s an epiphany for you – a revelation from God? Because it will leave you not with an answer, but a question – a question that goes to the heart of who you are and why you’ve come here. A question that touches on life, and death, and the journey through life and death, and why that journey is worth pursuing to the very end.
Some closing words from our Isaiah reading:
See, darkness covers the earth
and thick darkness is over the peoples,
but the LORD rises upon you
and his glory appears over you.
Lift up your eyes and look about you.
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