Dear Friends,

The dynamic of the Epiphany season is that, in John’s words, “Jesus… manifested his glory, and his disciples believed in him.” The word ‘epiphany,’ of course, means ‘manifestation.’ The feast itself (on January 6), which we call by that name, always the twelfth day after Christmas, focuses on the story of the star and the wise men and the manifestation of Jesus’ glory to the Gentiles. The Sundays following, until Lent begins, also feature some revelation of Jesus’ glory, beginning with Jesus’ baptism, when the Spirit descended upon him and God claimed him as his Son. The Last Sunday after Epiphany (this year on March 2), always presents the story of Jesus’ transfiguration on Mount Tabor before his disciples, when his face shone like the sun.

The disciples and we too, in encountering Jesus’ glory, are called to this belief. That is the purpose of Divine manifestations: to invite the perceivers to faith. They are fleeting moments, these epiphanies, not lasting monuments. They flash, they suggest, they boggle, and then they are gone. The wedding couple at Cana did not receive a lifetime supply of wine, only enough for the party! On Mount Tabor, the disciples soon looked up and saw “only Jesus” as they saw him each day. During later doubts, however, for scriptural figures and for us, these moments of grace can strengthen and nourish fading faith. The glimpses during daylight sustain during the long hours of night.

But, we protest, we have not seen Jesus’ face at all, let alone shining like the sun. We have not heard a voice from heaven or sipped wine that began as water. What epiphanies are to call forth our faith?

If we think that, we are missing something. Divinity pops through with some frequency. Grace transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary before our eyes. The light of God’s grace pierces our darkness in flashes great and small: the experience of birth or of death or of being freely loved by another, a glimpse of true beauty, the incomprehensibility of the vastness of space, a sudden grasp of the unity of all things, a feeling of being ‘saved’ when all our resources are spent. Those are the moments that call us to believe, that invite us to seek the Christ in other less obvious places in our lives.

In this time of Epiphany, we are to be attentive to God’s manifest presence with us: within ourselves, in others around us—both those we love and those whom we have difficulty loving, in the joys and sorrows of our lives, in the opportunities to serve others, in the often taken for granted beauties of nature, in the mysteries of existence which defy our understanding. As we find Jesus’ glory shining through, let us, like his disciples, believe in him.

Faithfully,
- Stephen