The Epiphany of the Lord 2026

Lectionary: 20

...the mystery was made known to me by revelation.
It was not made known to people in other generations 
as it has now been revealed
to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit...

Epiphany is such a wonderful word, and it's well represented by a blazing star -- perhaps a supernova -- which overcomes darkness even on our distant, dark planet, and provides guidance for distressed travelers. 

The epiphanic excitement of the New Testament writers -- Saint Paul, the Evangelists, and others -- about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus is palpable. Their stories and teachings are saturated by the same fresh excitement which animated Christians of the first century. They were despised, ostracized, and persecuted at times and in many places, but their joy overcame the darkness of Jewish resistance and Roman contempt. To this day we feel and enjoy the same energy as we hear of the Magi coming first to Jerusalem, and then to Bethlehem. 

Epiphany and revelation imply the discovery of a truth – a mystery – previously unknown, unimagined, and unforeseen. This truth comes with certainty and indisputable authority. Those who know Jesus of Nazareth know that he is the Son of God even as they embrace him also as the son of Mary and one of our own kin. They see no contradiction between his divine and human natures, despite the confusion it causes among those who have not seen the light or believed the word. 

And yet, for all its mystery, the revealed truth also makes perfect sense. The gospel speaks very clearly to our confusion today. For instance, the Gospel takes a familiar old saying that every mother teaches her child, “Don’t do to others what you don’t want done to yourself’.” Hindus, Zorastrians, Buddhists, and Jews said the same thing.  What could be more obvious? But Jesus retuned the old saying, and turned it into a revelation that now seems obvious: "Do to others as you would have them do to you.” We’re not passive victims anymore. We can do this! We can take the initiative and show fairness, kindness, and generosity first, without waiting for someone else to begin! Why had no one ever thought of that? It took a divine revelation to show us the obvious. 

Revelation – or epiphany – is never weird, alien, or ridiculous as it leads us out of darkness and ignorance to the truth about God, ourselves, and the world in which we live. Because it also shows our sinful tendencies to bigotry and arrogance, and reveals our preference for sheepish stupidity, it teaches us the humility to receive knowledge as a gift. Researchers – that is, those who wish to know the truth and work for it –  learn to recognize the truth, and are given the grace to receive it worthily. 

But when we speak about truth we should be clear about facts. All the facts in the world don't add up to the truth. The word fact comes from the Latin word, facere; that is, to make, as in manufacture, factor, facetious, and fictitious. Things that are made. Facts are manufactured, man-made items with many useful purposes, but the truth puts everything in perspective. And often discards old facts as nonsense. 

Even entire sciences like phrenology, geocentrism, the Gaia hypothesis, miasma theory, and racism are discredited and dismissed. Millions of people today suffer under ideologies like Marxism, capitalism, fascism, and Nazism. Desperate for easy answers, they cling to ideas that are clear, simple, and wrong. Those who love the truth never regret seeing old lies and old liars discredited. To paraphrase Psalm 37, “I have seen wicked ideas spreading like crabgrass. When I passed by again, they were gone; though I searched, I could not find them.” 

But there are people who prefer lies, hate the truth, and react ferociously when they hear anything that even suggests the truth. The magi’s questions about a newborn King of the Jews aroused suspicion and fear in the holy city of Jerusalem. They were already a frightened populace suffering under King Herod's arbitrary rule, the city's mercurial politics, and the Pharisees' obnoxious self-righteousness. The possibilities of a newborn king and regime change were profoundly unsettling. We should not be surprised that Herod ordered the slaughter of helpless babies in Bethlehem after hearing what the Magi said. Those who have not heard the Gospel, or have heard and rejected it, often do the same thing. 

Today we suffer under many misguided, atheistic ideologies. They control our politics and dictate the nation’s policies. They have a lot of energy, coupled with fear, suspicion of strangers, and false assumptions. They judge ideas and people by agreement or disagreement; friends agree with them regardless of their moral integrity; and their enemies disagree, regardless of the common humanity we all share. 

We grow up in this environment of ideologies. I, for one, was told early on that the Russians were bad people and Americans were good. Europeans were socialists and stupid; Americans were capitalists and clever; Catholics were right; Protestants were wrong; Jews missed their opportunity; but everyone else might be saved if they became Catholic. These beliefs were neither happy nor inspiring; they defined the limits of people I might trust.

I remember the 1950s and the church of that time well enough to remember why we needed some updating. There was too much Jansenism, and too much Pharisaism, too many triumphant Catholics thinking that they were better than any one else, and too many gamers who played with rules. 

But ideologies, because they are neither the truth nor the gospel, change, fluctuate, appear, disappear, reappear as something else, and continually tell us we must keep up with them or risk being uninformed, backward, and stupid. They are not Good News, and no one is happier for believing them.. 

Today I don't find very many people happy about being Republican or Democrat or feminist or gay or espousing any other ideology. They need to hear the good news of Jesus as I needed to hear the good news of Jesus in the 1950s.

The light still shines in darkness; we see it in our churches, and we wait with hopeful joy and great confidence for the second coming of the Lord, when Justice and Mercy will embrace, and the world will know that Jesus is Lord.