Clergy Notes — Epiphany, January 5, 2025
As the rest of the world winds down from the busy season of Christmas and New Year’s Eve parties, the Church, by contrast, is just beginning to celebrate. The Word of God is made flesh, revealed to angels and shepherds, and now – at the celebration of Epiphany – to Gentiles; sages from a foreign land.
When peaceful silence lay over all,
and night was in the midst of her swift course:
from your royal throne O God,
down from the heavens,
leapt your almighty Word.
This lovely excerpt from Wisdom, used as the antiphon for the Magnificat in this season, wonderfully paints a picture of God’s self-giving revelation to us. Humans, often so oblivious, receive this wonderful gift of God’s glory amongst us; we benefit from God’s presence even when we are ignorant of its existence.
An epiphany is something we cannot manifest on our own. We cannot concentrate hard enough to make it happen; we cannot wish it into being.
Just so, God’s glory needs not the recognition of humankind in order to be so; the glory of God is always there; in the person of Jesus, and in the entirety of the Trinity.
It is our purpose to praise God’s glory, as the wise men from the East recognized. They travelled incredible distances and faced many dangers in order to fall down and worship the babe in whom God’s glory was and is revealed.
So may we do, now and always.
Mother Amanda
