#Liturgical Year – Breaking the Chains that Bind

We had a what?!
Epiphany.

i-ˈpi-fə-nē

The word comes from a Greek word that means, “appearance, or manifestation.”

We tend to use that word when a person comes to a sudden understanding or realization of the significance of some event or discovery.
“Wow! I get it now!” he said as he grasped that moment of Epiphany.

There is another Epiphany that followers of Jesus celebrate today, January 6.
This one looks to the revealing, or appearance, of Jesus as God Incarnate.

Here in the West we use the image of the Magi who traveled from the region where Eastern Iraq is now. They gathered gifts to present to the One whom they considered the new born King of the Jews. Traversing deserts and desolate routes, they led their caravan to a small, podunk town in the Province of Judea. When they arrived they fell down and worshiped Jesus. This was their Epiphany. They experienced the appearance and manifestation of God in the face of a young child.

The Eastern Church celebrates with remembering Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan River at the hands of His cousin, John. As Jesus came up out of the water, the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove descended upon Him and the Voice of the Father spoke revealing that Jesus was God’s Son. A Son in whom God was ‘well-pleased.’ In this act, this Epiphany, Jesus appeared to the World as the manifest Presence of God.

Here in the U.S. we don’t think too much about Epiphany as a religious holiday.
We’re usually pretty busy cleaning up after the REAL holidays of Christmas and New Year. We get back to work and business-as-usual moaning about the fact that the next paid holiday for most of us is months away.

But, Epiphany?
Yeah, who cares?
I still have to go to work.
School’s back in session.
It’s no big deal.

What if we stopped for a moment and considered this event?
Who is Jesus in the world today?
Is He a child at His mother’s side holding a blanket?
Excited, yet too young to understand why these strange men are standing around praising God and offering Him gifts?
Or, is he a young man standing in the living waters of the Jordan, dripping from being immersed in the cool wetness of the river?

Well, yes and no.

Yes, Jesus was all of that and more.
We celebrate the events that revealed Him to the World.

However, are we who follow in His footsteps not truly His Body right here; right now?

If His Body, then bearers of His Image and Presence.

We are, in a very real sense, the Epiphany of God today.
We are God’s appearing and manifestation in our own culture.

Perhaps it’s time to live into that reality.

Leave a Comment

We humans do like things to be done in a neat and orderly fashion, don’t we? I mean, look at how we’ve developed mathematics and theoretical physics and our sock drawer. A place for everything; everything in its place.
Our minds and bodies respond to order and rhythm. Contrary to some popular ideas, we don’t really like things that are linear. Yeah, we try to draw timelines and straight line graphs and such.
But, we are far more comfortable with things that are cyclical.
Seasons, for instance.
Winter is followed by Spring. Summer joins in the cycle with Autumn grabbing on to Winter’s coat tail to begin the circle again.
We talk about the Circle of Life, not the Straight Line of Life.
Medical folks speak about Circadian rhythms that follow a cycle. They don’t move from point to point to point. Rather, they follow the circular motion of the Earth’s rotation.

Cycles and rhythms are good for us.
They provide for good order and allow us to function with a degree of confidence that today will in many ways be much like what we experienced yesterday.

One such measure of cycles begins this Sunday for those of us who follow the traditions of the Christian Church.

A brand, spanking new liturgical year begins with the first Sunday of Advent.

Advent is the season that prepares us for the birth of Jesus.
The word derives from the Latin adventus. That word means “coming,” or “arrival.”
So, the season of Advent is that time of the yearly cycle when we look forward to the arrival of Jesus the Messiah.

In recent times, though, Advent has become little more than that time of year when we rush around finishing the shopping. We dig through the attic or basement to pull out all of the decorations which need to be dusted off so they can be hung on trees, (or, reasonable facsimiles of trees), or placed on mantles and coffee tables. Don’t forget the holiday table ware and dish towels!
All of the local radio stations pull out their Christmas collections of music. (How many times can a person really listen to “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer” before going completely mad?)

What if we actually stopped for a second and considered the Season?
Perhaps, we could feel the rhythm.
Let the Spirit of the Season rap out a cadence that our heart could match and join with.

Rhythms are part of who we are as Living Beings.

Let this Sunday be the beginning of a new cycle of life in which we gaze expectantly toward the Arrival of God’s Messiah in our lives.

Tag: #Liturgical Year

We Had And Epiphany

What’s Next?