Copyright © 1992
Perhaps you are familiar with Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins great sonnet, God's Grandeur, which begins,
The Christmas liturgy of the church resounds with a verse from Psalm 98 which thrills with a like emotion, All the ends of the earth have seen the saving power of God. Sing a new song to God, the psalm insists, because God works wonders. God is always doing something new, so the same old song won't do anymore.
The question for us becomes, so what? Where do I look? I hear the gospels and the stories of Israel, but what has God done recently?
Epiphany completes the Christmas season. The word became flesh and dwelt among us. That was the beginning, John says. The end is yet to be written by us. Epiphany is that awareness we come to, sometimes suddenly and sometimes so very slowly, that God really does dwell among us. Where? Where did light break through darkness for you last? A lover's word? A child's smile? A stranger's kindness? Maybe God became flesh in you to heal the pain of another person, to rescue someone held captive by anger or despair or addiction. Epiphany means being aroused to God's beautiful self-revelation, and pursuing it like the Magi across the deserts and hostile places of life to do it homage. Sometimes its a big deal, like the events in Eastern Europe must seem to those who have lived so long dominated by communism. More frequently, our encounter with light is less earth-shattering, like lighting a candle in a darkened house, or lighting a campfire in a forest night.
The late Jesuit mystic Anthony di Mello, writing on the beginning of the gospel of John, suggests that his listeners look steadily at the darkness. It won't be long before you see the light. Gaze at things. It wont be long before you see the Word. And the word became flesh. He came to dwell among us. And stop those frantic efforts to change flesh back into words. Words, words, words!
All the ends of the earth have seen the saving power of God. If we let God's word become flesh in us, we become an epiphany, a place of revelation. Not a people of words, but a fiery river of grace becoming flesh, sweeping our hearts, homes, parish, and world into the reign of God.