8th January 2012 - The Epiphany of Christ

Today we celebrate the Epiphany of Christ. The ancient monastic prayers for this day contain the following words:

'Three Wonders mark this day we celebrate.
Today the star led the Magi to the manger;
today water was changed into wine at the marriage feast;
today Christ desired to be baptized by John in the river Jordan to bring us salvation, alleluia'.

The thing which links these three events is that they speak of God’s revelation of himself to the world in Jesus Christ. In the words of my favourite Epiphany hymn, today speaks to us of “God in man, made manifest”.

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I looked up the word “epiphany” in the dictionary and it gave a number of definitions of the word. The first was simply that it is a Christian festival. The second was “an appearance or manifestation, especially of a deity.” But it was the third which I thought especially helpful. It said an epiphany is, “a sudden, intuitive perception of, or insight into, the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience.”

The Epiphany is not simply a recollection of an event which happened two thousand years ago but instead is meant to be something which happens in us as contemplate the events which we remember on this day. As we think about the story the Wise Men, or the miracle of water changed into wine, or the time of Jesus baptism we are not simply to observe those as interesting events which happened long ago but by observing them come ourselves to “a sudden, intuitive perception of, or insight into, [their] reality or essential meaning” and because we have that “sudden, intuitive perception” be ourselves transformed so that we never see the world in the same way again.

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One of my favourite stories from the Old Testament concerns Elisha. The King of Aram is at war with the King of Israel but every time he attacks he finds that the army of Israel is ready for him. He accuses his officers of having a traitor among them but they tell him “It is Elisha, the prophet in Israel, who tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bedchamber.” So the King of Aram sends his army to capture Elisha. 

When Elisha’s servant gets up early next morning he sees “an army with horses and chariots ... all around the city” and rushes to Elisha to tell him. Elisha responds, “Do not be afraid, for there are more with us than there are with them.” Then he prays, “O LORD, please open his eyes that he may see.” And we are told, “So the LORD opened the eyes of the servant, and he saw; the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.” The story is in 2 Kings chapter six and if you don’t know what happens next I’d urge you to read it for yourself. It is a wonderful story. But right now I want you to understand what happened to the servant; “the LORD opened the eyes of the servant, and he saw...” He had an epiphany and the way he saw the world was changed for ever.

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“Lift up your eyes and look around you” said our Old Testament reading today, “Then you shall see and be radiant...” I believe that it is utterly central to being a Christian that you see the world differently from those around us. In our Gospel reading today we heard again the story of the Wise Men. Their wisdom lay in the fact that they could see through the external appearance to the reality which lay beneath it. When Herod heard of the baby nothing about him changed. Indeed his first thought is to dispose of the baby so that nothing will change. But the Wise Men had already transformed their lives by coming on a long journey and they were able to see through the outward appearance of an ordinary mother and child to see their God made manifest to them. So Herod continued on the path which would in the end literally consume him physically and mentally. The wise men are heard of no more but are remembered in Christian devotion and, like all who put their trust in Jesus, will rise to live for ever in the new creation.

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This is what I want you to understand today. That we are called to see a deeper dimension in the world. The dimension of meaning and significance; the "God dimension". There is a terrible danger that we compartmentalise our lives. Indeed often we are expected to do just that. Men and women are told that that you don’t bring family troubles into work, or that your religious convictions are a personal matter and should be kept for your own time. This kind of splitting up of our lives is in total conflict with the wholeness and integrity that is God’s intention for humanity. God’s plan is gather all things together in Christ and compartmentalising which excludes him from particular areas of life or society is nonsense.

God is present in every area of our life and your world if we will only open our eyes and see him. In the words of a hymn I remember from my childhood,

But if we desire him,
He is close at hand;
For our native country
Is our Holy Land.

This is sometimes easier to know in some places than in others. The Celtic Christians spoke of “thin places” where the heaven seemed close to earth. When I go to Holy Island and look out from its eastern cliffs I often sing out loud:

Fishermen talk with him
By the great North Sea,
As the first disciples
Did in Galilee.

Travelling helps us see such things. That is why the ancient discipline of pilgrimage is important. But the aim of going to special places is that we see all places as special. As TS Eliot wrote:

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

Or, to turn again to that hymn from my childhood:

Every peaceful village
In our land might be
Made by Jesu's presence
Like sweet Bethany.

Even our village, even this place. It’s an Epiphany.