January 6th marked the beginning of the church's liturgical season known as Epiphany. The word "epiphany" means a moment of clear understanding, an "aha" moment where everything comes together to finally make sense. In Advent we anticipated the coming of the Messiah who would put things right. In Christmas we witness the birth of the Messiah, though we have little time to ponder what that will mean, only that this is the beginning of the fulfillment of our hope for "peace on earth and [God's] goodwill to [all] people."
Epiphany is the final season of the Advent-Christmas-Epiphany trilogy. In this season we ponder who Christ is, to whom he was sent, and what that will mean for us. In the story of the Wise Men, we learn that the Messiah has come not only for the Jews, but for the Gentiles, not only those near, but those afar, and not only for those "like us", but those who are "not like us." In the Baptism of Christ we discover that we all must convert and be transformed. In Jesus' day, baptism was how a non-Jew became a Jew. It was a radical thing that John the Baptist was calling for the Baptism of all, Jews and Gentiles, as a sign of their repentence. And notice that Jesus, himself, did not escape Baptism. At the Wedding at Cana, we see Jesus' first miracle prefiguring the second sacrament of Communion and its necessity in the Christian life. We also see Mary, mother of Church and first Christian, model the essential Christian response to Christ when she says, "Do whatever [Jesus] tells you."
It is in these and other stories we learn who Christ is and that he was sent from Heaven to gather us, you and me, into the Kingdom of God, through baptism, eucharist, and quintesentially through himself. As the mystical nature of Christ's mission to us becomes clearer to us, we join in having an Epiphany.
May your Epiphany not be a season only!
Fr. James+
