Happy Epiphany! Epiphany begins this month, as it does every year, on January 6thand continues right up to Ash Wednesday. Epiphany is the final episode in a trilogy or even trinity of seasons: Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany. This seasonal trilogy is all about the incarnation.
Advent is a season of preparation: we prepare for the incarnation of God in this world. And we not only prepare to remember his coming over 2000 years ago when Jesus was born and placed in that manger, but we prepare for Christ’s second coming at the end of time and his daily incarnation in our lives. In our readings during Advent, we heard different people talk about ways that Christ was coming.
Christmas is a season of celebration: we celebrate the incarnation with Christ’s birth. In our Christmas readings, we heard the nativity stories from Luke, Matthew, and John. There is oh so much celebrating to do during these twelve days! If you are reading this Bellringer article in the first few days of the month, we are still in Christmas, so keep celebrating!
Finally, Epiphany is a season of integration: we integrate this incarnational truth into our lives. God didn’t just come into the world so we could celebrate. God came into the world to make a difference in people’s lives. So, in our readings this season, we hear of people encountering the incarnation and how they respond. We hear of the Magi and how they responded with gifts. We hear of Jesus inviting people to follow him and their response to that call. We hear Jesus’ teachings and what is asked of those who do follow him. Each of these readings is related to the incarnation, but they go beyond that and ask what does it mean for our lives. What does it mean that Christ is born and sent into this world to proclaim the Good News? What is my response? What is your response?
This is Epiphany: a time to integrate the incarnation into your life. We hear stories in Scripture of the epiphanies that others experience and how they responded to those encounters in order to recognize our own epiphanies, our own moments in which God was incarnate in our lives, and to explore how we have responded and how we could continue to respond. Epiphany is a time to take all of that work of preparation and celebration and make it matter.
Bingham+
