12 days of Christmas - Epiphany

The 12 days of Christmas are the 12 days following Christmas.
Today, Friday, January 5 is the 12th day and Saturday, January 6 is Epiphany.

The origins of Epiphany as a church festival are vague, as is the definition of the word.
“Epiphany” can mean manifestation, revelation, appearance, insight, enlightenment, or a shining forth.
Epiphany begins with the story of the Magi, astrologers, who follow a brilliant star to the place of Jesus’ birth and honour the child with gifts. Upon seeing the baby, they were “overwhelmed with joy,” and fell on their knees.

The wise men awaited a sign in the sky — a star — to guide them on this journey. Revelations break in, light shines forth, and glory appears. Such things are from the realms of mystery, awe, and wonder. They surprise and disrupt the normal course of existence. Epiphanies are not of our making.

But we need to be more than passive recipients of epiphanies. We need to be alert for their appearance and search out the signs of their presence. Revelations can be missed if we aren’t attentive or attuned to the possibilities of sacred surprise.

• What it would be like to expect epiphanies?
  Not just in stars, but in the more normal course of things. 
• What if we “attuned” ourselves to “sacred surprise”?
• Can we be open to the possibility that “aha” moments might happen anywhere and anytime
  Maybe epiphanies — not just the big, dramatic, starry ones — are humbly manifesting themselves all around us in ways we don’t expect, and they hold the promise of insight and deeper understanding in the everyday.
• When the Magi go home and the tree comes down, things return to normal. Or do they?
  The beautiful, unexpected, and even unbelievable story of God-With-Us invites us to a rebirth of imagination. 
• Let us ask ourselves today:
  Are we open to God's surprises?
  Or are we closed and fearful before the newness of the Holy Spirit?
  Do we have the courage to strike out along the new paths which God's newness sets before us, or do we resist, barricaded in structures and systems and ways which have lost their capacity for openness to what is new?

The Magi, of course, were looking for a sign. The Magi were outsiders. Imagine a group of psychics turning up at church on Easter Sunday, saying, “We got a strange reading in the cards, and it brought us here.” But they weren’t content just gazing at the star. They didn’t remain in some distant locale and admire its glory from afar. They got up and followed it to its source. And their journey even involved danger, a treacherous king attempted to use them to manipulate this manifestation for his own evil purposes. They kept going.

We don't create epiphanies, we respond to them.
Epiphanies grab a hold of us.
Epiphanies ask something of us. The star is an invitation, a calling to do something — to act.

One of the Old Testament passages that is often read at Ephiphany are these words from the prophet Isaiah 60:1

Arise, shine; for your light has come,

and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.

We arise; we shine — glory entices us, woos us, into the light.
We don’t just observe.
Epiphany embraces and enlivens us.

The author and poet Madeleine L’Engle captures the fullest sense of Epiphany in this blessing:

This is my charge to you.

You are to be a light bearer.

You are to choose the light.

Arise. Shine.