Today marks a day called Epiphany, but what in the world is it and why it is important? The word epiphany is a fairly uncommon word that means to be revealed or a startling revelation. To have an epiphany is kind of that lightbulb going on kind of moment.
We’ve all had those epiphany kinds of moments. Some are pretty simple. You’ve been digging for your keys for hours and then “Aha!” you remember the last place you had them. It’s kind of like that. But the day known as Epiphany is like that just bigger!
So imagine knowing a favorite story from your childhood. It’s a story you’ve been taught since you were little. It’s so familiar to you that you could likely recite most of it from memory! There’s nothing all that earth shattering about the story itself. Then imagine one day if someone came in a rewrote the story’s ending! When an ending changes the whole story changes!
Well that’s exactly what happened on Epiphany! It is a celebration of the changing of the story. Sure on this day we celebrate the arrival of the Magi, Wisemen, Astrologers, or whatever you call them. That’s true but their identity and title is less important than the place from which their journey started. Remember how the bible says there were magi from the east? Well the east was not Jerusalem. It wasn’t a location associated with the story of the Old Testament. It wasn’t a location that was part of the promise of God’s blessings through the coming savior. These men were not part of the happily ever after of the salvation. They were, to put it bluntly, outsiders and not welcome!
But they were there. They were in the place where Jesus lived. Some time after Jesus was born these men showed up. Having traveled from the east, they came to pay homage (cool word for honor) this child who would be king. But why did they come? Why would they come to honor a child who wasn’t part of their system? Why would they worship a baby from a culture that didn’t include them?
Enter Epiphany! The great Aha of the bible!
They came because God just changed the ending of the story. He didn’t change his mind but he showed how our minds were too short-sighted to really get what was going on all along. He changed the ending. He included the people who were thought to be excluded. He came for the least of these, the not good enoughs. He came for those who could never measure up. For those no one else wanted. He came for those from the east and the west. He came not only for the insiders but also for the outsiders that they might become insiders! He came to seek and to save the lost!
Epiphany is the realization that God’s plan is way bigger than the first century Jewish followers of God had originally thought! Epiphany is a day to celebrate and remember that God gave us an Aha! that would include us in his salvation story. Now because of the events of Epiphany, we know that the message of the bible isn’t just for the best of the best and those that have it all together. It’s for people like you and me. People who need to rely solely on the grace and mercy of a God who look into the world and sought after us.
Happy Epiphany!
Perhaps you’ve seen the news that Christians are in an uproar over the lack of Christmas decorations on the new Starbucks coffee cups. Perhaps you’re one who was offended that they chose to lose the symbolic Christmas icons on their cups. But I have to say, sometimes a cup is just a cup.
t’s a word that brings fear into the hearts of many. The idea of change is frightening to say the least. But why? Why is change so frightening?
