“Epiphany and Beyond”: A Sermon by the Rev. Dr. Pamela Dolan

The Rev. Dr. Pamela Dolan
Epiphany and Beyond
January 8, 2023
Texts: Isaiah 42:1-9 and Matthew 3:13-17

Have you taken down your Christmas tree yet? Trust me, there is no right answer to this question. Some of you are probably super organized and want things all put away and tied up by January 1 so you can really feel like you’re getting a fresh start for the new year. Others are very determined to observe all 12 days of Christmas and maybe even extend them a little further. In some cultures, Christmas isn’t even on the calendar until January 6, and it would be far too soon to be thinking about getting things back to normal.

This short season that follows on the heels of Christmas is officially called the Season after the Epiphany, referring to the feast when we remember the arrival of the Magi, the wise people from a foreign land who recognized in the baby Jesus a singular manifestation of the divine presence in the world. When I think of the word “Epiphany,” I think of a sudden “aha” moment of understanding, but really it can mean not only sudden insight but also a revelation or manifestation of something formerly hidden or unknown.

Sometimes, though, I wish we could call this the Season of Epiphany. For one thing, the Sundays between now and Ash Wednesday all tell stories about how the divinity of Jesus becomes manifest in the world. It also seems like the time of year when we most need the festive twinkle that some holiday lights can add. It can feel pretty dark and dreary, and if everyone is trying to convince you to go on a diet or start a new exercise routine, things can get really grim for some of us.

The writer Sybil MacBeth, who calls herself an Epiphany Extremist, embraces the entire season between January 6th and the beginning of Lent. She says that on the feast of the Epiphany, she removes all Christmas ornaments from her tree and replaces them with gold stars, and keeps the white lights and gold stars, and then renames her Christmas tree an Epiphany bush! She writes, “The white lights on the tree [are] a continuation of the Nativity theme of light in the darkness. During Epiphany the light of Christ begins its movement beyond the borders of Israel.[…] Every time I look at the tree I remember the far-flung light of Christ.”

MacBeth concludes, “Epiphany is the time when the gospel gets a chance to spread and marinate in me, when I get to ponder who Jesus really is. I let those stories tumble around inside me. I let the visual cues of stars, candles, and lights remind me how far those stories have spread.”

My hope for the next few weeks at St. Martin’s is that we’ll all let the stories of this season tumble around inside us. In a few weeks we’ll have our annual meeting, and on that Sunday we’ll have stories to tell of how we spread the Gospel and manifest God’s love and light in the world. It will be a time to look back over the year that has passed and take stock of where we are and of where God might be leading us. Being intentional about this is another way that we can make the season we’re in a season of Epiphany, of insight and focus and wonder, not just the season “after” Epiphany.

Today, of course, is one of the feast days that falls within this season—that is, the Baptism of Our Lord. It bears all the markers of an unfolding Epiphany. In the reading from Isaiah, we hear the prophecy that we believe is fulfilled in Jesus—a light to the nations, a covenant to all people, the one who bears the glory of God. Understood from a Christian perspective, this is both a Christological claim about the divinity of Jesus, the anointed one, and also a clear statement that the God we worship is the God of the whole world, not only of one tribe or nation or sect. This is Epiphany 101!

The baptism of Jesus itself is understood as a manifestation or revelation of all three persons of the Trinity. The Creator God is manifest in the voice breaking forth from heaven; the Son and Redeemer is manifest as he comes up out of the water, no longer simply Jesus of Nazareth, but now the anointed one, sent to do God’s will. And the Holy Spirit is manifest in the form of a dove, breaking through the sky and alighting on Jesus—even if, in Matthew’s retelling of the event, Jesus is the only one who sees and hears these manifestations of divine glory and anointing.

When a person is baptized, the priest traces the sign of the cross on their forehead and says, “You are sealed with the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever.” The oil that we use at this anointing has been blessed by a Bishop, an outward sign or manifestation of our connection to the ancient church, a lineage going all the way back to Peter and the apostles.

If you are baptized here at St. Martin’s, the oil will be fragrant with frankincense and other essential oils. To me there is nothing better than the smell of that oil still lingering on my skin hours after I have had the privilege and honor of baptizing someone. It too is a manifestation, a shining forth of the connection we all have through our baptism, much as the waters of our bodies and the waters of the earth serve to connect us to one another and all Creation.

And yet, even when the oil has dispersed and its fragrant smell has faded, the anointing continues. Nothing can ever take away the grace of baptism. Being sealed by the Holy Spirit, being marked as Christ’s own, may not be visible to the outside world. But it is nonetheless a manifestation of our belovedness. When, through our baptisms, we are joined with Christ in his death and resurrection, we also hear those words spoken to Jesus from the heavens: “This is the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

God loves everyone and everything God has made. The purpose of Baptism is not to submit to this ritual in order for God to love us. It is to make manifest and publicly acknowledge the love God already bears for us, and to yoke ourselves to that love. As wise people have taught us for millennia, the only way to manifest God’s love into the world is by first embracing and laying claim to our own belovedness.

Baptism is the beginning of ministry, and every time we renew our baptismal vows we are recommitting ourselves to our ministries within the church and in the world. As we renew our Baptismal vows today, I hope we will take seriously the questions we are asked and the answers we give, pondering them in our hearts long after we leave the church this morning. Even if you’ve taken down all your Christmas decorations, I hope you will find a place to add extra light and sparkle into your home. My new year’s prayer is that we will all find ways to let the stories of this season tumble around and marinate in us, and most of all that we will find manifestations of God’s love and light everywhere we look, especially in our own bodies, minds, and spirits. Amen.

Work cited: The Season of the Nativity: Confessions and Practices of an Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany Extremist by Sybil MacBeth (Paraclete Press, 2014).