What can we learn from the Epiphany?
Like many in our community, I was raised Baptist. In my case, it was worse. My father was a Baptist preacher for more than fifty years. As a young child, I was a Royal Ambassador, proficient in Bible drills. I could quote many important passages of scripture from the King James Bible. I earned Sunday School perfect-attendance badges so many years in a row that I looked like a four-star general on perfect-attendance day. I never missed Baptist Training Union on Sunday evenings nor prayer services on Wednesdays, not to mention two one-week revivals every year and Vacation Bible School. Baptists spend a lot of time in church.
To my parents’ dismay, I married outside the faith, and my young Lutheran wife suggested that we compromise and join a Lutheran church. In this experience I learned two important lessons. A good marriage is built on compromise, which women understand differently than men; and being a Lutheran is far less challenging than being a Baptist.
The Lutheran church is liturgical, which means there is a calendar of events and scriptural passages that follow throughout the year. January 6th is the first big event in the liturgical year. It’s called The Epiphany and celebrates the day Wise Men from the east visited the baby Jesus in Bethlehem. An epiphany is a sudden realization or understanding, in this case gained by the wise men that the baby born in Bethlehem was a special child who would change the hearts and minds of many.
The story is allegorical. This doesn’t mean it isn’t true, but later writers used it to explain the significance of what had happened to the child as an adult. We see this in the three gifts brought by the visitors: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Gold represented royalty. The child would be a king whose kingdom would have no end. Frankincense was for the spiritual dimensions of the baby’s presence and life. He would be a spiritual leader. Myrrh was a common embalming substance and predicted that the child would give his life for his followers.
In the 13th chapter of the Book of Romans, St. Paul reflects on the many “do-nots” that the Law of Moses prescribes for daily life. Do not steal or murder or commit adultery. Then, in verse 9, as though he has a sudden realization or understanding of something profoundly important—an epiphany—Paul changes direction and simply says, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.”
What would our lives be like if all of us loved our neighbors all the time? Perhaps we would show compassion for the poor immigrant who is desperately fleeing a dysfunctional and dangerous country. We might listen patiently to others whose political beliefs are different from our own, offering only measured and quiet responses devoid of bitterness and recrimination. We would greet the grungy stranger holding a sign proclaiming his hunger, not with suspicion and disregard, but with simple generosity and support. Our city, county, state and country would surely change. What if we replaced passion for the defense of our opinions with sincere compassion and respect for others?
The Epiphany is both a historical event and one that points us in different directions, including thoughtfulness, kindness, benevolence, and civility; in other words, loving one another. The wise know this and believe there is hope for us still, and this understanding is the true meaning of the Epiphany.
