Becoming Light: an Epiphany series
I began reading about Epiphany somewhere in the mountains of Tennessee when I felt a shaft of light breaking into my darkness. As my family and I drove home from a North Carolina Christmas in 2021, I clung to any ounce of joy I could find.
A long-dormant feeling of goodness, promise, and beauty erupted in my soul as we steered through the winding landscape. I had finally been with my family after months of separation in the pandemic. At my parents’ house in North Carolina, we played in a winter wonderland of Christmas snow. We made cinnamon rolls, watched movies, and played games. I reconnected with my most important people. Fear and depression lifted, and I felt like myself again.
Light began to dispel the oppression of 2020, and I had reason to shout, “Glory to God!” This awakening coincided superbly with my learning about Epiphany, a church season filled with luminescence and courage.
What is Epiphany?
Epiphany falls after Christmastide (also known as the 12 Days of Christmas from sundown Dec. 24 to sundown on Jan. 5.) In fact, the church has celebrated it since the 4th century. Epiphany means appearance, manifestation, revelation, or theophany. (I love that word, theophany!) The season is dedicated to Christ’s humanity coming as revelation to the entire world, not just Jews, but everyone!
Three Kings Day, Jan. 6, commemorates the three wise men worshipping the Christ child. Some traditions celebrate this day with a three kings cake in which a baby Jesus figurine might be hidden. (This weirds out my kids a bit, but I think it’s fun!). Other traditions include chalking the door with a Magi’s blessing, or lighting candles during worship. At my own little church, teens sign up for special jobs around the church to serve during Epiphany.
The season is not one day only. Epiphany extends all the way to Ash Wednesday in many Western Christian traditions. Besides the Magi coming to Jesus, Epiphany highlights Jesus’ baptism, Christ’s presentation at the temple, the Wedding at Cana, and his transfiguration.
If you’d like to learn more about the history of Epiphany including art connected with it, please check out the resource page I created.
The revelation of Christ comes as a human to teach us how to be ourselves: to learn how to live within our limits, to choose His love even when we do not feel it, and to trust him in whatever small way we can.
What does Epiphany mean to you?
Silence, Darkness, and Present Courage
Each January, like that one in 2021, I struggle not to be overwhelmed by darkness in some way. Not only the bleakness of brusk, cold days but a darkness hovering in my mind. This past year I began meeting with a therapist for a lesser-known form of OCD.
If you have struggled with your own mental illness or been with a loved one on their journey, then you know how the mind can diffuse any sense of God’s presence, even when you are a faithful believer. Sadly, many of us have been told our mental illness can be cured if we prayed more or read more scripture. In my case, those things help but they do not stop it.
It’s a very real experience, and it left me wondering if I’d ever return to a sense of being whole. Mental illness may not be your story, but you have probably felt God’s silence or a tangible lack of his presence, which you may associate with a time of darkness.
Enter Epiphany. This season has been a great help to me, and it may be to you too. The revelation of Christ comes as a human to teach us how to be ourselves: to learn how to live within our limits, to choose His love even when we do not feel it, and to trust him in whatever small way we can.
Epiphany is an entire season dedicated to that shaft of light and courage I felt in Tennessee. It’s a time to explore afresh what God's physical, real manifestation in the form of Christ means for us. He comes for all humanity, even those of us who find ourselves riddled with darkness on a daily basis. Especially us. He is light with us and within us.
I invite you to join me on a journey of Becoming Light.
