A Pastoral Hope for Entering Epiphany
The last first months of the calendar year are often a bizarre juxtaposition of mood and behavior for Americans. In December, we’re like the Whos of Who-ville on steroids: decorating, entertaining, and gift-giving to the point we often collapse across the finish-line of Christmas into the escapist la-la land of the week before New Year.
Then, the ball drops for a few seconds at midnight on December 31st and we instantaneously transform into the most type-A of embodied self-improvement projects, sharing inspiring quotes, going for runs, and making lists of goals we have for being our best selves in 202X.
It seems to me there’s a connection between December’s materialist escapism and January’s self-focused activism. We put as much effort as is humanly possible into finding satisfaction through stuff and food and people in December…and it didn’t work. Our souls still feel empty. And so we turn to a new idol: self-improvement. Let’s work as hard as we can to make ourselves better people…maybe that will work!
Spoiler alert: it won’t. What our souls need most is something we cannot conjure up on our own. We need a power from outside ourselves to make us new and bring the spiritual satisfaction we were created to receive and enjoy. It can’t come from stuff or striving. It can only come from Jesus.
And thus, God in His kindness and grace gives us Epiphany.
Epiphany is the season in the church calendar that begins on January 6th and ends as Ash Wednesday arrives. Epiphany is a season of MISSION. It begins as we remember the coming of the magi to worship the Christ child in the manger. In this moment, the Gospel was preached to Gentiles for the first time: Jesus was shown to be God to people outside the Jewish family! God with us has come for ALL of us! And His glory is made visible to ALL eyes in and through the incarnate Christ! Epiphany is also a season of REVELATION. Lectionary readings feature not only the magi beholding baby Jesus, by Jesus’s presentation at the Temple, Jesus’s baptism, and the transfiguration—moments that REVEAL that Jesus is FAR more than meets the eye! He is GOD in the flesh! He is God’s GLORY with human skin on. And He’s come into our story and lives with power from outside the human story to bring us what our souls most desperately need which we cannot earn for ourselves: salvation from sin, victory over death, healing of our hearts and planet, a new name of God’s beloved child, and a new purpose in life: to share the Good News of Jesus’s identity and coming Kingdom with all people so that they too might see and believe!
This Epiphany, we’ll lean into these themes as we preach through the Gospel of Matthew looking at the life and ministry of Jesus and the Compassionate Kingdom Jesus has come to bring. We’ll consider Christ’s character: the love of God for others He feels deeply and showcases powerfully. We’ll consider Christ’s message: what did it sound like when Jesus preached the Gospel? As we consider Jesus, we’ll also consider our church’s vision, mission, and values, praying for God to give US collectively fresh revelation of who He’s called us to be and fresh direction for the mission He’s called us to pursue in this New Year.
Our hope and prayer is that in addition to this being a season of COLLECTIVE revelation for us as a church, it would also be a season of PERSONAL revelation for you. May Jesus give you FRESH VISION to see Him in new and deeper ways. May He renew the calling He’s placed on your life…or call you to follow Him for the first time! May He bring satisfaction and hope to your heart in every place you need and desire. And may the fruit of all of this be joy as you—like the magi—leave every encounter with Him changed, going home “a different way.”
Let us pray…
O God, by the leading of a star you manifested your only Son to the peoples of the earth: Lead us, who know you now by faith, to your presence, where we may see your glory face to face; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
- A Collect for the Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles, ACNA BCP 2019