There is Hope for the Rest of Us

When Christmas is safely put away until next year, Epiphany appears. It is the Twelfth Day of Christmas without the drummers drumming, the lords a-leaping and strange women milking cows in your living room.

Traditionally it marks the time when the Wise Men showed up. In a broader sense it is the day that marks the appearing of the Christ child to the Gentiles. I like to think of it as a day that celebrates those who show up late and bring strange gifts. If there is room for them in the manger and if the Holy can appear to these mercurial characters from far away, there is hope for the rest of us.

“Epiphany” means appearing. The online Miriam Webster Dictionary defines it as “a sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something” or “an intuitive grasp of reality through something such as an event, usually simple and striking.”

This is a hopeful thing.

At the end of Christmas, tacked on almost as an afterthought, is the promise that if we missed finding the Holy in all the hoopla that usually attends the season, there is hope for us. For those of us who look for burning bushes to show God’s presence and instead find glowing twigs, this holiday is for us.

This odd little holiday is the promise of finding the Holy in the ordinariness of life. It is the promise of being surprised by the graciousness of God in the predictable work-a-day world that defines most of our lives. We stumble through our days, either expecting a burning bush or not expecting anything at all, and instead we are surprised by something simple that we suddenly see as extraordinary.

It is the cardinal that lights on the bird feeder and brightens the dull winter sky. It is the gentle snow shower that coats the trees and reminds us of winter’s beauty. It is the moment when an act of kindness, an unexpected compliment, or a smile reminds us that in the midst of all the jerks that inhabit this world there are more kind people, more loving people, more gracious people than we usually think.

It’s easy to give too much air to all that is negative and fan the flames of cynicism and discouragement. Epiphany is the invitation to open our eyes to the simple, profound appearances of the holy that surround us every day.

If, as the Psalmist tells us, “the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof…” then anything can occasion the holy in our days. It is a matter of training our awareness to see with different eyes. The glowing twigs are as much an occasion of the holy as are the burning bushes. Their appearing is an invitation to discover (literally to “uncover”) the holy in the midst of the ordinary.

Cultivating such a discipline is also a way to ground us in what is most important. The greatest meaning of life is not found in the occasional spectacular moments, but the everyday moments that surprise and remind us of the Holy in the midst of our everyday lives.

There is never an appearance of the Holy that does not point toward God’s greater purposes and dreams for our world and all that is in it. In other words, there is a justice and righteousness component to God’s appearing.   These every day revelations of the Divine are a reminder that God has an agenda for us as people of faith. These glowing twigs are the reminder that we are part of a larger conspiracy of wholeness and justice for the world and for its people.

It begins in us when we are surprised, even astonished, by the beauty of the holy in the homeless person panhandling on the corner; you know the one you look away from so your eyes don’t meet. That person is a beloved child of God, a face of the Holy waiting to astonish us into the truth that we are one human family.

The cardinal that lands on the bird feeder is the herald that we are stewards of this great creation.  The dusting of snow is the harbinger of either a season of drought or abundance; each reminds us that global climate change is real. We cannot enjoy the bounty of the earth without being reminded that we are its caregivers and stewards.

Happy Epiphany. May your days be filled with glowing twigs and surprising appearances of the Holy.