Epiphany Sunday, 4 January 2009

The Star of Bethlehem
Edward Burne-Jones
1888-1891



Epiphany Sunday
Matthew 2:1-12 (Click the link to read the scripture.)


The Christmas Show at Radio City Music Hall in New York City can only be described as a spectacle, and that word does not do justice to the event that happens there on stage at the corner of 50th Street and 6th Avenue (or Avenue of the Americas, as they’ve tried to rename it, though true New Yorkers tend to refuse that mouthful of a moniker). In fact, the official title of the show is “The Radio City Christmas Spectacular” which has played for over 75 years according to their website. (http://www.radiocitychristmas.com//) Of course, the Rockettes are a big draw as they high-kick their way through the holiday season. While Allen & I lived in New York I took my Mom to see the show once, and I continue to marvel at all that happened on that stage.

Besides the Rockettes, the big happening of the Radio City Christmas Spectacular is the telling of the Christmas story…you know the Christmas story with Joseph, Mary, & Jesus in it; not one of those more recent Christmas stories that involve elves or talking snowmen or other inventions of the marketing mind. For me, even as an adult some 15 years ago, part of the wonder of this theatrical occasion was that they used real animals in the show; right up there, on stage, in New York City, of all places, where the animals we were used to seeing were mainly pigeons and rats though if you had a chance to venture into Central Park you might find some squirrels begging for food.

But there they were up on stage: cows and sheep and goats and who knows what else. But probably the most memorable creatures to be part of the action, at least for me, were the camels; real, live, hump-backed camels.

Those dromedaries make their entrance, on cue naturally, with the Magi toward the end of the tableau in the midst of all the wonderful, dripping Art Deco interior that is Radio City Music Hall. No pigeons, rats or squirrels for these theatre-goers (though assuredly, I was in the minority as a New York resident in the audience…this show is mostly for out-of-towners I think I can safely assert). Camels; actual camels up there on stage.

So at the climax of this theatrical vision of visions, we have three actors made up to look like kings or magi or whatever corporate, ticket-selling America thinks they are, entering with their camels to complete the picture.

And that theatrical entrance, entering stage left if I recall correctly, is what we’re on about today. Epiphany: The tale of the wise men who traveled from distant points to pay homage at the birth of a child who was destined to be a king. There is much lore that surrounds this narrative. It doesn’t say that there are three wise men but tradition has put it at that number because of the fact that we’re told they brought three gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Once they were thought of as kings themselves; royalty who came to see this baby Jesus and pay homage to the king who was greater than they and thus the carol “We Three Kings” always comes to mind this time of year. But really, the proper translation is more along the lines of wise men. But we don’t know who they were or anything much about them; we don’t even really know if they had camels, but that’s such a good part of the Radio City show that why would we leave it out?

I don’t think it’s any coincidence that we celebrate Epiphany at the start of each new year. Epiphany is traditionally observed on the 12th day of Christmas, which is always the 6th of January for those of us who follow the western Christian calendar. A lot of churches, like ours, does not have a special Epiphany day service but mark the occasion on the Sunday just before or after, like we’re doing today. But Tuesday is really Epiphany, if you want to get technical.

But here we are, just barely into 2009, and our thoughts turn toward watching the night sky for a star to guide us. And who among us does not need that sort of celestial, heavenly guidance? Who has not stopped for a moment over the past few days and wondered what the oncoming months will bring?

True, this whole demarcation of time thing is humanly-created to fit our own human needs. At first we needed, as the supposedly intelligent creatures in the global neighborhood, to know when we were going to require shelter from summer’s scorching sun or winter’s cold. We needed to know when we should be out reaping from the plants that grew for the time ahead when food would not be readily available. Then we needed to know when to plant and when to harvest crops. So we came up with systems of marking time.

And today most of us mark time more with the ebb and flow of holidays and credit card bills than we do with agricultural concerns or the movement of those celestial bodies. And we’ve come to note when earth has gone around the sun in a full orbit. Of course, we can do that every day; every moment is twelve months, give or take a second or two I understand, from when we were at this particular point in relation to the course around our own local star. But custom has been handed down that we celebrate and note one precise moment in the orbit and say, “Now. Right now…at this point in the orbit…here is the start of a year.” And so we take time to reflect and ponder the future as calendars are replaced and champagne corks are popped.

Furthermore, we, of the western Christian ilk, have the opportunity for a double shot of that future-pondering. Because Epiphany, following on the heels of New Years Day, is when we seek, when we hope to learn, to discover. It’s when we look to the heavens, mimicking wise ones from centuries ago, for signs of new life and new hope; when we look for those stars that foretell change and new possibilities.


The word ‘epiphany’ comes to us from the Greek language.* It’s made up of two words: first, epi, which means ‘to’ or ‘on’; and then, phainein, which means ‘to show’. This celebration is indeed when God’s incarnation was shown to the whole of the world, represented by those gentiles, or non-Jews, whom we call the magi who came and recognized Jesus as God on earth. Those Magi, however many there were, stand in for all the rest of us who weren’t among the first century Jews.

Around 1300, there was another name used for this holiday: it was called, are you ready for this?, ‘Tiffany’. Yep, that’s right, the name that every other kindergarten girl seems to have these days comes from this festival. It got to be a name, in fact, because girls born on Epiphany, or Tiffany, were often named after the holiday.

Tiffany is itself a shortened name. It stands in for the longer word ‘Theophany”. Theophany…epiphany; notice the resemblance? That same root is at the end, our old friend phainein, to show. But standing in for that little word epi, we have theo which is the Greek word for God. Theophany means, essentially, ‘to show God’ or 'the showing forth of God', which of course is what was happening in that quixotic episode that Matthew recounts. God is shown to the world in the form of a kid in diapers, just as newborn offspring are shown to fathers standing with joy and thoughts of the future at the window of the hospital nursery…or at least that’s how they used to do it in the movies.

So the future-pondering in which we take part is not just idle speculation about the next five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes and what fate may bring to us during the course of them. No, this is one of those times when we get to stand apart from our culture, as seems to be occurring more and more often these days. As people of faith, claiming Christianity as our route to God, we are scanning the heavens not to see what the stars tell us of our future as a newspaper astrologer might, but for what most of us would consider the more-important search for Theophany…for a ‘God-showing’.

We pause amidst the spectacle of camels in Manhattan and let our eyes leave the fabulous Art Deco surroundings and even suspend for a moment the high-kicks of the Rockettes, holding the champagne corks and pausing in our calendar replacing for an instant, to notice that the stars lead to a baby whose birth we just celebrated; the very same baby who is our Theophany…who is our Tiffany…who is our Epiphany.

Yes, we will wonder about the weeks ahead in 2009, but don’t lose sight of your search in the heavens for a star, for a sign that will lead you to God-among-us.



* Etymology of Ephipany, Theophany, & Tiffany came from http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=epiphany&searchmode=none.