Wednesday 8 January 2020

Epiphany 2020


Carols were still being played at a nearby Mall on 1st January. A pleasant surprise because one would have expected the outlets to trot out commodities all crimson and red so as to reap the Lunar New Year retail wave. So, carols being played should be the way because the 12 days of Christmas should end on the 6th of January—the proper date for the Epiphany. However, for the sake of convenience, we have transferred ours to the Sunday between 2nd and 8th January.

What Epiphany means for the Latin-rite Church is that Jesus, the Son of God has been revealed primarily to the Magi. However, His baptism at the Jordan where a voice was heard declaring Him to be the beloved Son and the Wedding at Cana where He transformed water into wine, are also both epiphanic moments because the glory of His Divinity was manifested. For the Eastern Rite Church, the Theophany is focused more on the revelation of His divinity at the Baptism in the River Jordan.

Christmas without either the Epiphany which in Greek is a revelation from above or the Theophany a revelation from God does not make sense. From a certain perspective, the event of Christmas is a kind of looking back at the life of Jesus to make sense of it. Just like John did with the Prologue. Compared to Luke and Matthew who both gave an account of the circumstances surrounding the birth of the Christ, John entered right into the heart of the mystery to announce that before the advent of human history, the Word pre-existed time and the Word was God. In fact, the early Christians, notably those from the East, lumped the Nativity together with the Visitation of the Magi, the Baptism and also the Wedding at Cana as one celebration on 6th Jan because for them, each one of these feasts is but a manifestation of the Divinity of the Christ child. It was only with the passage of time that these events separated to become different feasts. It was the Council of Tours in AD567 that set both Christmas and Epiphany apart by the 12 days we know as the season of Christmas.

It is not surprising that Christmas takes centre-stage so much that we do not fully appreciate the impact of the Epiphany. This is possibly because we have been myopically blind-sided by the commercialisation of a theological truth—the birth of the Saviour of mankind. This is the irony of it. In a globalised economy, where speed and scale reign supreme, ironically, the truth of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world, has been narrowly relegated to the fringes of the local, provincial or sectarian. For example, fashion now dictates that Merry Christmas be replaced by Happy Holidays or Season’s Greetings so that we do not offend those who do not believe in Jesus Christ. Furthermore, sensitivity seems to demand that we do not impose Christianity’s world view on others. The paradoxical point being that this theological truth should be relative to time and place, whereas the commands of consumeristic capitalism do not seem to share the same humility. Everything must serve the might of the market economy but not Christ the Lord.

But the Epiphany is proof of Christ’s universality. The corners of the world have come to pay homage to the King of kings. There is a song which is old, as some of us are, but it a reminder that there is a search which is primordially human and which the Wise Men submitted themselves to. The title of the song is rather inappropriate, “Looking for love in the all wrong places”.

Let us consider this innate search or latent longing. We all long to be loved. We all want to be needed. We all yearn to live forever. Having these desires may help explain our inclination to sin. Firstly, man was created to love, serve and the revere God. Somehow, this interior orientation of man towards God been damaged and weakened by Original Sin. Man has a bent or a propensity to sin because his desires have become disordered. Hence, sin is analogous or comparable to looking for love in all the wrong places. As our moral compass has been compromised by Original Sin, our search often ends up short because we mistake that which is not good, not true and not beautiful as the Good, the True and the Beautiful. In our quest for the one thing that can satisfy us fully, that is, God Himself, we often settle on that which leaves us longing for more. Now you understand why drugs—not just narcotics drugs but power, sex, money, technology—are so captivating. They promise us fulfilment but end up enslaving us.

Today we celebrate not just any truth but the Truth. And, it is not local or confined to a specific geographical location. Instead, this is Truth in cosmic proportion. The Magi who had been searching, have now found the Truth their hearts have been aching for. The name Jesus means God saves. Presumably, the one who saves is also the one who created. To think that God saves only Christians is to reduce the Creator of all that is, to merely a deity amongst deity, thereby negating everything we believe about this God. God saves and the Saviour is the Saviour of all. Whether we want to be saved or not is altogether another matter but the point here is that we who believe in this universal Saviour somehow live as if He were just the Saviour of Christians—betraying a tribal mentality that we do not really know our God or believe in Him as we should. Perhaps it explains why some of us turn to bomohs so easily…

It is said that the Epiphany is a manifestation to the Gentiles. But upon deeper reflexion it should lead to the conclusion that it is more than just a showing forth to the Gentiles. In the visitation of the Magi, we recognise that everyone, Gentiles or otherwise, is looking for the One who created us, the One who has saved us and the One who will satisfy us completely. God has put a God-size hunger in our hearts for Him. Whilst the Epiphany is acknowledgement that God came and revealed Himself to us, the Magi symbolise our search for our Creator, our Redeemer and our Sanctifier. Hence, the Epiphany is not just any revelation but THE revelation which answers all our questions about who our Saviour is and how He has entered human history in order to save each one of us. God wants to save everyone, not just Christians. Whilst Jesus the Head labours to save mankind, each one of us has profound duty to ensure as many as possible are incorporated into His Body, the Church.