January 6, 2024 – The Epiphany of Our Lord

On every January 6, we celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany. It’s a date that – like Christmas – changes from day of the week to day of the week based upon the year. The Episcopal Church doesn’t let us move our celebration of Epiphany to a Sunday like we can with All Saints without the permission of the Bishop. On the first Sunday after the Epiphany, we celebrate the Baptism of our Lord, and that celebration only takes place on the Sunday following the Epiphany. And so if you were to join us at the service at St. Paul’s, you would be experiencing a different set of readings and theme. That all said, I think there is a common theme that runs through both the celebration of Epiphany and the celebration of the Baptism of our Lord. 

The opening reading for the Baptism of our Lord is from Genesis (1:1-5) and it speaks of the Light entering the universe through God’s creation. The Gospel reading for the Baptism of our Lord is the same reading we heard a few weeks ago from Mark, where John the baptizer appears in the wilderness, baptizing people to forgive their sins (1:4-8). This time, though, we get the additional portion of the reading which states, “In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased’” (1:9-11).

For the people of God, light can be a powerful biblical image for a new understanding of salvation. Light is comprehended by believers in both testaments as a symbol of hope. Because light reveals objects to sight which are hidden in darkness, light is an appropriate reminder about truths which may have been forgotten in darkness. It is out of this darkness God’s promise continues to be revealed.

Most of us prefer to focus on the suffering of Jesus during Lent or the expection of the Messiah celebrated at Advent rather than the enigmatic manifestation of light which Epiphany imparts. The mysteriousness of the coming light is more than most of us can grasp. But occasionally, human experience will thrust upon us moments of truth expectantly. And, as Alfred Hitchcock has said, “you can’t prepare for the unexpected — by definition.”

I want to relate a story told by David Mosser, senior pastor of First United Methodist Church of Arlington, Texas. Close your eyes and walk through his story as I relate it to you:

My one encounter with darkness was when I was in the midst of an evening of study. The best place to study at the seminary was the basement. It was cool in summer and warm in winter, but its comfort range was marginal enough to discourage sleep. Talk between students was minimal; anyone who wandered into the basement stacks was on a more purposive mission than idle chatter.

Anyway, those who would study in the Spartan accommodations in solitary confinement were not there for fellowship. To get to my study table, one had to go down two flights of stairs, only wide enough for one narrow-shouldered person to pass, while scraping but one side.

It was an evening in April. Most students were busy researching and writing papers and doing things necessary toward the end of the term. As usual, I was at my basement table. I was studying the clock, and it read 6:04 when everything went black. It was an absolute black. The kind of black in which the earth once lived before God gave light in all of its various forms.

I knew the fluorescent lights would come back on soon. After all, they always did — until this day. Frozen, I sat for several minutes, still in utter darkness. Certainly after ten minutes my pupils were completely dilated, yet I could see nothing.

It was a helplessness which connected me to my blind brothers and sisters. The electricity had not returned to the basement as the minutes seemed to stretch into quarter hours. There seemed to be no sound from the rest of the library. No one knew I was alone in the basement. The building had an eerie silence.

Getting up, I groped along the table, reaching a railing, and then some stairs, but not the ones I needed. I kept asking myself, “Why hadn’t I paid more attention to the landmarks which had been so easily taken for granted in the light?” There was for me a great terror the next few hours as I tried to feel my way out of the large basement which seemed to grow all the while.

At 8:37 p.m. the basement lights flickered back on with great grace. I had stumbled and fumbled my way to a back corner where the musty outdated theological journals were stored. I was further from my destination, the exit, than I had been two-and-a-half hours before. The light was a welcome epiphany.

Light and sight are precious commodities but we so often take them for granted. Their value is always doubly underscored by the conspicuousness of their absence. John tells us that Jesus saw the Spirit descending like a dove upon him. God’s revelation becomes matter of fact when received as a given in life. 

We may wonder where God was when the shooting happened this past week in Iowa’s Perry High School. During the darkness of a personal tragedy or in the bleakness of the world’s worst episodes, the light of God’s hope is a true sanctuary. God’s hope is more than thoughts and prayers – God’s hope is action taken by creation to assure better outcomes. God’s hope is our call to action to do better. God’s hope is an ability to spread the light to others in our response and outpouring of love, sharing the true Word made flesh, who came among us as a baby – the light whom the Magi sought out, the glory of God that appeared over us, the descending dove of the Spirit. God’s glory is revealed in the hope that the future brings.