Week 5, Day 1: Preparing for Epiphany

About that time, Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and John baptized him in the Jordan River. While he was coming up out of the water, Jesus saw heaven splitting open and the Spirit, like a dove, coming down on him. And there was a voice from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I dearly love; in you I find happiness.” (Mark 1:9-11)

Adam JonesBaptism of Christ from a church in Axum, Ethiopia. From Wikimedia Commons

Before Christ, “epiphany” meant the manifestation of a god—a showing or an appearance. One arrogant Emperor who lived two centuries before Christ adopted the title “Epiphanes” because he wanted to be worshiped as a god (and he went on to spark a Jewish revolution which is described in the books of Maccabees). The root “phan” is related to light—a light coming into the world.

Christians used the word Epiphany to describe Jesus being revealed to the world, first when the Magi visited him, and then later when he was baptized by John in the Jordan river. (Sometimes we also use the word “theophany”). We celebrate Epiphany on January 6. The twelve days between Christmas and Epiphany are “The Twelve Days of Christmas” (like the song).

Today we say someone “has an epiphany” if they have an insight or a sudden realization. It can mean enlightenment.

I’ve been writing about consciousness during Advent and Christmas because we are on the way to Epiphany. I believe the whole season is an invitation to us, in the darkest part of the year, to have our own epiphany or enlightenment. We have the opportunity to realize something important about ourselves and the world in the story of Christ’s incarnation.

It is impossible to encounter the Living God without a radical reassessment of the self. Ancient people were wise to fear looking at the face of God, who wrapped God’s self in darkness and thick cloud to protect mortal eyes from seeing. One glance at God’s face and you would be unmade. It was too beautiful and terrible to behold. (Just ask Indiana Jones!)

But the God encountered in Jesus was viewable. Here was a face of God that we could put eyes on. But still, encountering Jesus caused people to be radically changed. They could no longer be the same people they had been before. The epiphany we encounter in Christ is like the scripture above: the sky splits open, and a winged creature descends with a message that you are, in fact, a beloved part of a divine family.

I believe we have a built-in need for this kind of epiphany encounter, a radical reset in our lives. The self gets too wrapped up in its own story, believing that its perceptions are accurate, trusting too much in its unconscious reactions and learned habits, buying into the story it tells itself about the world.

When we learn how much of our lives are unconscious, it becomes clear that consciousness takes effort. The more I understand how little I understand, the more space I have to choose to see differently, to react more thoughtfully, to tell a different story than the one my internal critic or my culture are telling me.

In this week preceding epiphany, I’m going to widen the lens to talk about what the extra space consciousness gives us.

Prayer: God, I am your beloved child. Wake me up to all that means. Amen.