January 6, 2023
Epiphany
Epiphany is a funny word, and a holy day (holiday) and season that sometimes escapes our grasp. To get a handle on it, let’s look at the word Christmas. Christmas comes from two words “Christ” or “Christ’s” and “Mass.” Christmas refers to the Mass (or worship service) offered to celebrate God’s gift of Jesus as God’s anointed one, or Messiah (Hebrew), or Christ (Greek).
Christmas was and is celebrated on December 25. But our Orthodox friends in the East adjusted their calendars differently from our calendars in the West, and over time, our Christmases shifted 13 days apart. But the Western and Eastern churches have over the years focused on two different aspects of the gift of God’s Christ in Jesus. In the West we focus on Nativity, the birth of Jesus. It is the manger in Luke and the Star in the East in Matthew. In the East the emphasis is on the revelation of God to the world, not the few. It is the Magi worshipping the King, Jesus proclaimed God’s Son at his baptism, and Jesus’ first miracle of turning water into wine. Those are the Christmas texts in Orthodox churches, which they celebrate January 6. In the West we have added this day to our Calendar and call January 6, “Epiphany” or revelation, instead of Christmas.
So now we have 12 days of Christmas, a short season focusing on the birth of Christ, then we focus on God’s revelation of Christ to the world on Epiphany, which is today, January 6. Though we were not in church celebrating Epiphany today, we will celebrate the Baptism of Jesus this Sunday, the first Sunday after Epiphany. So happy Epiphany to you, and to our Orthodox friends, a joyous Christmas.
Below is a poem written by the poet Malcolm Guite, who spoke in our church last year, about Epiphany, my “Christmas” gift to you all.
I look forward to being with you all again soon.
May the new year contain many blessings for us as a church.
~ Pastor Todd
Epiphany
by Malcolm Guite
It might have been just someone else’s story,
Some chosen people get a special king.
We leave them to their own peculiar glory,
We don’t belong, it doesn’t mean a thing.
But when these three arrive they bring us with them,
Gentiles like us, their wisdom might be ours;
A steady step that finds an inner rhythm,
A pilgrim’s eye that sees beyond the stars.
They did not know his name but still they sought him,
They came from otherwhere but still they found;
In temples they found those who sold and bought him,
But in the filthy stable, hallowed ground.
Their courage gives our questing hearts a voice
To seek, to find, to worship, to rejoice.