On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him.Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.

Matthew 2:11-12 (NIV)

What’s An Epiphany?

Because we know you can have one, and that it’s not just a Christian Holiday, right? The truth is, depending on what flavor of Christian you are, the Epiphany references different things. In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, Epiphany is a time for celebrating the baptism of Jesus. I’ll speak more about that baptism next week (and if you haven’t heard, you’ll get to witness a baptism that day too)!

The other Christian celebration of Epiphany is the wise men coming to bring gifts to Jesus and his parents. Some have said this was the genesis of gift giving at Christmas, but I think it’s probably more related to the Roman festival of Saturnalia, which had a gift-giving component to it already. Regardless! In our tradition, Epiphany is the day (January 6th) and the Sunday nearest to it (this year the 4th) when we acknowledge the wise ones and the gifts they brought.

But conveniently, Epiphany has another, perhaps even more obvious meaning:

An epiphany is a “discovery, a realization or a disclosure” of or about something.

A realization. That’s a special thing at the beginning of a new year! Sometimes it’s out of the blue, but usually an epiphany of this sort comes after reflecting on experiences we’ve had. I spoke on Sunday about a number of people sitting out on resolutions at the beginning of the new year. I also reminded folks about the Melissa Villaseñor quote where she said, “It’s not new year, New me; this time it’s new year, same me.”

Whether you decide to make resolutions this year or not, I hope you’ll do it in light of what you’ve learned about yourself over the past year. Those experiences can be a gift if you take some time to reflect on them. Each year, the season of Epiphany arrives to remind us that though Christmas comes to an end for this particular year, the gifts it gives could last a lot longer!