What's Tony Thinking

Onomatopoeia Day

I’ve always loved the word “epiphany.” It is one of those words that sounds like what it means, which is called “onomatopoeia,” another fun word to say. Epiphany means “manifestation,” “revealing,” “a moment of insight.” Don’t you think it pops from your lips and out of our mouth just like that? E-pif-a-nee! Epiphany!

Tomorrow, January 6, is the Feast of the Epiphany, the day when the church celebrates the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles. That, by the way, is when the three kings or magi (who were Gentiles not Jews) finally arrive at the manger. In Mexico we discovered Epiphany is a bigger day than Christmas itself. True also for the Orthodox church.

The meaning of that Feast and celebration is simple. Jesus Christ is for everybody. For all people. There are two ways to say, and to hear, that. One is triumphal and imperial. As is Christ is for everyone, swear you loyalty or be killed. But ask yourself, does that sound like Jesus?

The other way to hear “Jesus Christ is for everybody,” is as good news and as an invitation. He is for you, on your side. This revealing of God’s will and way, of God’s grace and mercy, is not for some inside group, some special club. It’s for all the people: saints and sinners (we’re all both), poor and rich, young and old, strong and weak. Divine mercy for everyone!

Just a year ago here I introduced Fleming Rutledge’s little book, Epiphany: The Season of Glory. And we did a Crackers and Grape Juice webinar study on it at that time as well.

In her introduction Fleming points out that for many Christians, particularly Protestants who are children of the Reformation, the liturgical year was for a long time lost, but has now been re-discovered. Lost as a reaction against the Roman Catholic Church by the Reformation. “Popery!” “Legalism!”

But over the last fifty years the church year is enjoying, to quote Fleming, “new appreciation among the American mainlines: Methodists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, the Reformed churches — and also in a surprising number of looser forms of Protestantism.”

As Christendom has waned and American society becomes more post-Christian the churches have paid more attention to how faith is formed and nurtured. This has fueled, among other things, a rediscovery of the liturgical year: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter and Eastertide, Pentecost and Ordinary Time. It is the way we tell and structure time as Christians. A sacred calendar.

Amid this rediscovery and new appreciation of the liturgical year it is important to hear this reminder from Fleming:

“But above all, the church year leads us to Jesus Christ . . . the progression of the seasons, when all is said and done, is designed so that the members of Christ’s body may participate even now in his eternal life by rejoicing in his living presence, following him in our various vocations, enacting his teachings in our ministries, knowing him as our Savior, and above all glorifying him as Lord.”

The liturgical year, its seasons and feasts day, is not an end in itself. All those Advent calendars point not just to December 25. They point to Jesus.

So she continues,

“In our time, however, many of the very same mainline churches who show a new interest in the church seasons have grow weak in proclaiming Christ. It does not give me any pleasure to note this. Jesus of Nazareth is revered as a teacher and moral example, not infrequently side by side with various religious figures, but the apostolic message about the unique identity and destiny of the Messiah (Christos) has become attenuated.”

Over this past year, since last Epiphany, my own preaching and listening, reading and studying, have pointed me toward an epiphany of my own. It is suggested by Fleming’s word, “. . . rejoicing in his living presence.”

My epiphany goes like this: the important question is not only what did Jesus do and say (past tense), but what is Jesus doing and saying today? Too often Jesus is locked in the past, a person, an event, that happened two millennia ago. So we keep going back to the past, asking what did Jesus say and do then?

The point of the resurrection is not only that death’s power is defeated, but that Jesus is not locked in the past, but is active now, speaking now. So when we read the Bible we not only ask “what did Jesus say?,” but “what is Jesus saying to you, to me, to us, now?” That is what was off about the popular WWJD, “What would Jesus do?” Should have been, “What is Jesus doing?”

I don’t know about you, but I needed that reminder, that re-framing. What is God, what is Jesus, what is the Holy Spirit saying now to me? So here’s a prayer for you, for me:

“Speak, Lord, for I need your word, your guidance, your presence. As you speak, grant me ears to hear, even and especially, when it’s hard. Grant me the courage and humility to listen to and for what you are saying to me today. Amen.”