Merry Christmas!

Happy New Year!

______ Epiphany!

In the next two weeks, we will celebrate two of the three above events. The third one doesnʼt hardly even fit into our language. We donʼt greet each other with “Merry Epiphany” or “Happy Epiphany” or “fill-in-the-blank Epiphany”. Does anyone even know when Epiphany is or what it is?

Confirmation was held on Sunday, May 3, 2009 at St. Paul's in Deer Park. Those confirmed were Aaron Kemling and Mitchell Nichols pictured with Pastor Dan Voth. -Photo by Cheryl Kemling

Epiphany is January 6^th, the end of the 12 days of Christmas, and has a variation of meanings that interrelate - shining of a light, a shining forth, a manifestation, an appearance or a revelation. We use this language for a couple of reasons: the prophet Isaiah wrote: “Arise! Shine! For your light comes and the glory of the LORD rises upon you. Indeed, darkness has covered the earth and thick darkness the peoples but the LORD has risen upon you and his glory has become visible to you and nations come to your light and kings to the brightness of your shining.” (60:1-3) and John said, “In Him was life and the life was the light of men and the light shines in the darkness and the darkness could not overpower it. The true Light, which gives light to every man, was coming into the world.” (1:4-5, 9) Epiphany is about the Light of God shining into the world, being revealed at His baptism and through His miracles.

For Americans, since we start Christmas back in October we are only too ready to put Christmas away on December 26th. But the Church use to begin Christmas on December 24th and celebrate it for 12 full days, culminating with Epiphany. Epiphany is among the oldest Christian celebrations, along with Easter and Pentecost. Epiphany was celebrated at least a 150 years before Christmas focusing on the baptism of Jesus and the wedding at Cana where He performed His first sign in the Gospel according to John. Once December 25 was established as the date for celebrating the birth of Jesus, Epiphany became a celebration of the visit of the Magi and the sharing of gifts with one another.

So now that you are bored with this history lesson, why spend the time writing about Epiphany? I think it is tragic how quickly the world ends Christmas when we should be spending at least 12 days celebrating the birth of our Savior. We minimize it when we cheat ourselves of the joy of the revolutionary events of Christmas. Most of our western churches don’t even bother to have a worship service on January 6th for this ancient celebration of the Church. Here our brothers and sisters in the Eastern Orthodox churches have it right with beautiful liturgies and rich symbolism to stress that Light has burst into the darkness of our world, to celebrate our baptism into Jesus and His baptism, and to feast in preparation for the Marriage Feast of the Lamb in His Kingdom that will have no end.

I pray your celebration of the entrance of God into this world in the person of Jesus doesn’t quickly fade. He has come to rescue us from sin, from death, and from the power of Satan. His rescue has saved us and given us eternal life with Him in heaven. That is truly reason to rejoice and celebrate for at least 12 days!

Have a blessed Christmas and an joyous Epiphany!

In His Service,

Pastor Dan