Epiphanies

Since this is the twelfth and final day of Christmas--Epiphany, and I am spending my year in the Nashville Epiphany Project, I figured it would be a good day to post. Beginning on this day and in the weeks that follow during Ordinary Time, the church focuses on the stories of Christ's revealing as the messiah. Starting with the story of the visiting magi, and continuing with stories of Jesus' baptism (this is my son...), the wedding at Cana, stories of healing and preaching, and ending with the mysterious story of the transfiguration of Jesus, we see how the people of 2000 years ago had epiphanies in their own lives about the identity of Jesus.

This year is all about finding God in places that we don't expect to find anything divine. It is about going to the places in this particular community of Nashville that the world has forgotten or loves to hate, whether that's in a community of immigrants who aren't welcome in the place that they have come to make a new life for them and their families, or in low-income housing projects where single mothers do their best to keep their children from the ever present dangers of drugs and violence, or an alleyway on 8th Avenue South where lonely and angry people look to another can of beer as their source of comfort. The message of Christmas is that Jesus came into the world and has walked in the shoes of the unwelcome stranger, the struggling parent, and the homeless addict. The best place to look for God isn't in the coffee shop at your mega-church, or in a great piece of religious art, or even in the sermon at church on Sunday, though God certainly is in all of those places. The best place for the epiphanies of our own lives to happen--to recognize that God is with us--is in looking at the direct image of God in our neighbors. In the weaving of hearts and the passing of peace in worship, in helping the grieving, in loving the poor, in welcoming others: this is where Epiphany happens.

The Work of Christmas

by Howard Thurman

"When the song of the angels is stilled,

When the star in the sky is gone,

When the kings and princes are home,

When the shepherds are back with their flock,

The work of Christmas begins:

To find the lost,

To heal the broken,

To feed the hungry,

To release the prisoner,

To rebuild the nations,

To bring peace among brothers,

To make music in the heart."

— The Mood of Christmas, 23