Epiphany

Advent is the invitation to hopeful waiting for Jesus to come...

Christmas is the invitation to joyful celebration, in the face of suffering brought about by his coming into the world, as light exposes the works of darkness...

Epiphany is the invitation to step out into the world, searching for clues to where Jesus may be found...

To search him out, in community with fellow seekers, looking not with earth-bound eyes but from the perspective of the heavens, leaving behind the comfort of our familiar world, where we are Somebody, to journey to the edge of our understanding and then to be led another step beyond, to find him where we would least expect to find him, in the midst of ordinary lives caught up in events far beyond their control, to give our resources to those he has entrusted himself to, to have our trust abused by those moved by dark self-interest, to inadvertently cause pain even great pain to the innocent and yet to trust that the One who has led us to this place will not turn his back on the hurting and confused.

Epiphany is the invitation to step out, in this case into 2012, into the unknown but foreboding days that lie ahead, with eyes open and hearts on fire, and ask, “Where is the one born to be king, born to liberate his people, born to usher-in the kingdom of life?”  Where is he here, coming alongside, his manifest Body – the local church, as a tangible alternative to ungodly structures of power – releasing and affirming life within the wider community?

Epiphany is the key that unlocks the treasure-chest of our life, enabling us to bring out old treasures and to add newly-discovered treasures, to be brought out in their turn, to teach and to train for life as ambassadors of the kingdom of heaven.

The four-week Season of Epiphany begins tomorrow, with the Feast.  How will we engage with this gift?  What old treasures will we rediscover anew?  What new treasure will we find?