Sunday, 1/6/13
I have a personal attachment to the
Epiphany. I was baptized in Epiphany Church in St. Louis, and I attended the
Epiphany Grade School. As little kids we left an “e” and an “a” out of the
name. We’d say, “We go to Piffney school.” My dad taught my older sisters to
pronounce it the right way as cheerleaders. He had them doing a little step as
they chanted. “E-P-I, E-P-I, P-H-A-N-Y.”
The name Epiphany is older than
Christianity. It literally means “Showing forth.” And ancient kings struck fear
in subjects by saying they were actually gods showing themselves forth in human
form. Two hundred years before Jesus, a Syrian king who desecrated the temple demanded
that people address him as “the Epiphany.”
In Chapter Twelve of the Acts of
the Apostles the son of Herod the Great staged an epiphany for himself. To
strike fear in unwilling subjects he had them assembled before his throne. Then,
decked in silver and gold, and appearing in bright sunlight, he had stooges
leading the crowd in shouting, “He is a god, not a man!” For that, Luke tells
us, Herod was struck down, and eaten by worms.
In the Christian era, centuries
before Christians thought of celebrating Christmas for the birth of Christ,
they had been observing the Feast of the Epiphany as their big feast, sharing
the limelight with Easter.
Oddly, while we think of Epiphany
as the acts of the Magi recognizing Jesus as being like God. Some parts of the
Eastern Church celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany with the story of the
Marriage Feast at Cana when Jesus first “Manifested his glory.” Other parts of
the Eastern Church celebrate the Epiphany with the Gospel story of he baptism
of Jesus when the Father, speaking from heaven, called Jesus his Son.
WE must celebrate Epiphany by
putting our whole hearts and souls into believing that Jesus was God appearing
in a human form.
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