Epiphany

Christmas is over. The presents are all unwrapped and in use. The wrappings have been disposed of and the tree, which was gaily decorated a short while ago, is either now packed away, if it was artificial, or it has been discarded with the trash if it was real. In the stores,the Christmas merchandise has been taken away though there may still be a few unsold items that are offered at big discounts. The racks that were once filled with Christmas cards are now holding Valentines for the next commemoration. We are finished with Christmas for another year. In the Church we have moved on from Christmas to the season of Epiphany, the next season in our yearly cycle of devotion. The emphasis now has been shifted with approximately a thirty year jump in time. We have moved on from the Virgin Mother and the baby Jesus to the grown man Jesus standing beside the River Jordan, listening to a preacher from the desert. Now it is the time of the Baptism of our Lord Jesus Christ, the event with which Jesus began his public ministry. We are no longer concerned with the child but with the man and we are concerned with the mission to which his life is dedicated.

Christmas is over for another year. Or, is it? Certainly for the world around us Christmas is a yearly event, a celebration of giving and buying, a celebration of parties and decorations, a celebration of good cheer and good will. And that has passed. For us as Christians, Christmas is, and certainly should be, all of that but it is more. The More of Christmas is something that cannot be packed away, it cannot be forgotten with the decorations. The More of Christmas is something that simply cannot be just ignored for another year. The More of Christmas is concerned, not just with that event, but with the implications of that event. The More of Christmas is concerned with who it is who was born in that stable in Bethlehem. And so it is toward the More of Christmas that we turn in the next season of our yearly cycle of devotion and reading of the Holy Scriptures. It is the More of Christmas that illuminates and gives reason to our lives as Christians. For you and me, as Christians, Christmas is not just an event, it is not just a celebration. But rather, Christmas is, for you and for me, a beginning. It is The Beginning. It is the beginning that marks the dividing line of all human history. You and I as Christians divide history into two sections. We divide it into B.C., before Christ; and A.D., Anno Domine, the Year of our Lord. Christmas is the Beginning! The beginning of what? What is there about this event, this birth that justifies our making this claim?

So, whose birth is this anyway? Certainly as you and I look back through 2,000 years of Christian devotion, the answer to this seems easy and it seems obvious. But, I wonder if it really is easy and obvious? The Child was born. The angels sang. The shepherds and the wisemen came to worship and adore, then there was silence. For about 30 years, nothing more happened. The angels, the shepherds, the wisemen, they all went away and life went on as usual. It was a little bit like our celebration of Christmas today. It was all packed away and life just simply went on. The Gospels, as we read them, are very little help on this. Apart from one rather sweet story about Jesus in the Temple at the age of 12, there is nothing more. So, why was all this fuss made? Why was this event so important? Above all what right do you and I, as Christians, have to make the claim that this is the pivot point of human history.? What the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, called, “The Hinge of History.” What right do we have to claim this?

Who is this person? Who is this man? Throughout the Gospels and down through history, this same question has been asked again, and again, and again. It has been asked in many ways. It has been asked in wonder. It has been asked in cynicism. It has been asked in anger and it hasbeen asked in hope. Who is this man? Time and again the disciples, those who were closest to Jesus, would turn to one another both in wonder and in consternation and ask again, Who is this man? Who is this who can heal the sick and can raise the dead? “Who is this who even the waves and the sea obey?” (St. Matthew 8:27) While they followed him and were with him day after day, still the question, Who is this man? Then the Scribes and the Pharisees, the leaders of the people, they were condemned in his preaching and were confounded by his wisdom. But even as they opposed him, they knew that there was something different about him. They found in him a kind of power and of authority that transcended anything they were accustomed to. Even as they plotted to get rid of him, the nagging question kept coming; Who is this man?

From that day to this, the devout and the not so devout, in writing and debating; in the myriad of the books and the pamphlets, in the learned dissertations and in the popular novels, the same question is asked; Who is this man? The answer to this question, or better, the many answers to this question is what is meant by the More of Christmas. The answer to this question makes Christmas, not just a lovely event, but it makes it a beginning. It makes it The New Beginning. It makes it that pivot point around which human history turns. It makes it the “Hinge of History.” Now, for us in this season of Epiphany, our thoughts and devotions are turned toward this question. We are turned in Epiphany toward the “Showing forth” of Christ as that is what the word Epiphany means. We are asked to explain why all the fuss? Who is this who is the focus of so much attention? Who is this for whom such extravagant claims are made? Who is this man? Jesus is born. Ah yes, Jesus who? Who is he?

Some thirty years later the child who had now grown to manhood, came to the Jordan River bank to hear the latest preacher, to hear John the Baptist, that stark and mysterious figure from the wilderness who came like the ancient prophets of Israel, with a message of warning and a demand for repentance. He summoned people to repent and to be immersed in the River as a sign of their repentance and as a symbol of a new beginning in their lives. John had everybody stirred up. As Saint Luke’s Gospel says; the people were in expectation. (St. Luke 3:15) The phrase I like better is “the people were on the tiptoe of expectation” as it is translated in the New English Bible. It is difficult for you and me today to fully appreciate the atmosphere of expectation and hope that was running through the Jewish people at that time. Here were a people looking for a Messiah, expecting a Messiah; looking for a deliverer. Looking desperately for someone who would free them from foreign domination, someone who would restore to them the ancient Kingdom of David and Solomon. Restore them to their proper place, as they believed themselves to be, God’s Chosen people, and who now had become simply a small part of the pagan Roman Empire. When we see the hopes and expectations of the people of that time, it really is a universal longing. It is the hope and expectation of subject people everywhere. That things will change! That God will intervene! That things will be better! We have seen it in our day and time in people in different situations. Look at the democracy movement in China a few years ago. The feelings that ran among so many people. The breakdown of the Soviet Empire in Eastern Europe just over 10 years ago, which filled people with some of the same kind of hope and expectation. The people were on the Tiptoe of Expectation, and with this attitude they came out and listened to John the Baptist, hoping that he promised deliverance. Hoping that he might be the promised Messiah; that he might be the Christ sent from God. They responded in expectation by submission to the rite of baptism. Jesus came and was baptized by John at the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry.

The story of Jesus’ baptism is something that is surrounded by a great deal of questioning and a great deal of controversy. What does it mean? What really happened there? Was the dove; and the voice of God some kind of subjective internal experience of Jesus or was it something that was heard and witnessed by John the Baptist and others at the riverside? If we read the differing accounts of this event in Matthew, Mark, and Luke it is possible to have a number of different interpretations of it. In St. John’s Gospel, John’s witness to Jesus as the “Lamb of God” and John tells of his experience of the Spirit descending upon Jesus like a dove (St. John 1:32) but the fourth Gospel doesn’t actually say whether Jesus was baptized. In other words, the exact nature of the event is not clear but what is clear is that Jesus began his public ministry; Jesus began his preaching and teaching and healing with a clear affirmation of who he was. Thou art my beloved Son. With thee I am well pleased. (St. Matthew 3:16-17) In Eastern Orthodox Christian devotion, they place on the Epiphany a somewhat different emphasis and they place on Jesus’ baptism even a greater mystical significance. They say this is the first appearance of the Holy and Blessed Trinity. The first appearance of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit together on earth in Jesus’ baptism. Certainly we can see that at the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, the identity of the authority with which he spoke was established. Jesus is the Messiah, he is the Christ. Jesus is the beloved Son of God. Who is this man? “My Beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

Now we enter the Epiphany season and the direction of our thoughts and devotions moves from the birth of Jesus to the manifestation of Jesus as the Christ. We move to the showing forth, the proclamation of who he is. We do not put Christmas away and forget it. We do not pack it up in the attic with the decorations. Rather, now we dwell on the More of Christmas. With the baptism by John, Jesus began his public ministry of preaching and teaching and healing. Even more, Jesus began His journey to Calvary and to the Cross.

Jesus who? Jesus, the beloved Son of God. Jesus the one with whom the Father is well pleased.