After the festivities of Christmas, comes a beautiful season—that of Epiphany—also known as Theophany (revelation of God) in the Orthodox church. ‘Phany’ has its roots in Greek meaning revelation, but the pre-fix ‘Epi’ could be a variety of prepositions, “upon,” “on,” “over,” “near,” “at,” “before,” “after” etc. So Epiphany just means manifestation or revelation: in religious terms we mean revelation of God, much as Theophany.
It is interesting to note that in the very early days of Christianity, Epiphany was considered the significant season, with Christmas being just one part of the season of revelation of God to the world.
In the Eastern, Orthodox, Church, the great emphasis in this season is on Jesus’ own baptism, when explicitly we have God’s own voice telling the world that Jesus is His beloved Son, as well as the vision of the Holy Spirit descending on Jesus from heaven. We couldn’t ask for a more revelatory event!
Although the phenomenon of Epiphany in the Bible could be anything from God appearing to Moses in the burning bush to the Transfiguration of Jesus, we most commonly associate it with the twelfth day after Christmas, when we commemorate the wise men visiting baby Jesus and offering him gifts.
Of course, the figures of the wise men being brought to the crib has a satisfying sense of conclusion to our Christmas celebrations, but the Gospel readings set in our Lectionary are about the Baptism of Jesus.
The profound significance of the wise men coming to worship baby Jesus often illudes us. Messiah was anticipated to bring Jewish people freedom from oppression. But here we have gentiles coming to worship the new King. So right from his birth we are told that Jesus was born not just for the Jews, but for the whole world.
The theme of God being God of all people should not have been a surprise to the Hebrew people. After all, Isaiah tells us how it was not through raising a hero from their own midst, but through Cyrus of Persia, that God brought about their release from exile. The prophet Malachi proclaims that the Lord says, ‘from the rising of the sun to its setting my name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered to my name, and a pure offering. For my name will be great among the nations’.
The early Christians also had to be disabused of their belief in their own ‘chosen-ness’ as the people Jesus came to save! It took Peter’s vision of God asking him to eat ‘unclean’ animals and his subsequent realisation that God was asking him to baptise the household of Cornelius, to help them understand that Jesus came to save the whole world. Later we have Paul travelling widely making disciples of gentiles.
We should not forget that the vast majority of Christians in the world are not of Jewish heritage. When our carols talk about the ‘white arms of Mary’ and our art galleries are full of European-looking madonnas and babies, sometimes it is easy to forget that we are the ‘gentiles’, and the ’nations’ that prophets and psalmists talked about.
So Epiphany is a time for us to give thanks to God: for the way he revealed himself gradually through the ages so that we may have glimpses into his nature; for Jesus in whose life we see the glory of God; for the apostles who recognised it as the glory of God; and for the people who brought Christianity to us, showing us that Jesus is the Light of the whole world.
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