Some words on Epiphany

As I write, it is January 6, 2025. Four years ago, Congress met to certify the presidency of Joe Biden. All sorts of pundits will be writing, too, about the storming of the Capitol that day. Others may attempt to lionize it as a day of great patriotism. Today, the certification of a president went off without a hitch, but we can’t forget what happened then.

January 6 is also celebrated in Christendom as Epiphany. Western Christianity observes Epiphany as the day when the Magi followed the star of Bethlehem and met the Christ Child. Eastern Christianity, on the other hand, calls this day Theophany, and observes it as Jesus’ baptism. East is East and West is West, as they say. The twain have still not met.

My family had a folding cardboard creche, with a hole in the roof of the stable for a heavenly lightbulb to shine on the manger. There were tabs in the chartreuse grass to hold up all the separate figures: sheep, goats, camels, three shepherds, Mary, Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger, and three wise men.

No one can say for sure just who these visitors from the East were. Kings? Astronomers? Priests? Do we know for a fact that there were three? Nah, but three is an important number in Christianity. Did their arrival coincide with that of the shepherds? Nope. No one knows when they really arrived. But most creches, like my family’s, gather all the players together, timeline be damned.

Some traditions even give these sage figures names: Melchior, Caspar, and Balthazar. And here my brain scoots off on a tangent, recalling the book-banning women as they sang about dangerous writers in The Music Man: Chaucer! Rabelais! Balzac!

But I digress.

Epiphany also signals the end of the 12 days of Christmas, which the Church marked as both sacred and festive. Some workplaces now give employees a Christmas break, with time off between Christmas and New Year’s and maybe a day or two on either side. While this isn’t intended for religious observance, families can be together without the daily stresses infringing on their time. My own workplace does this, and it is a restorative perk.

American culture, though, really focuses more on the “Great Ramping Up to Christmas” rather than the actual Christmas season and certainly more than Epiphany. The GRUC tends to start the morning of October 31, as Walmart workers switch out Halloween merch for Christmas stuff. There’s barely time for a breath between the two mad shopping seasons.

It’s the introvert in me that wishes we could tone it down, but I’m in the minority. I was reminded of my curmudgeonly tendencies while visiting friends in Johnston in early December. While walking my dog, I met another dog owner, and as we exchanged a few words, it became apparent that she was European.

I asked if she was Dutch. Yes! We had a lovely exchange. I was extolling her biking culture, but she said there were good things here, too. In fact, she liked all the lights on people’s houses. “People in The Netherlands don’t do so much of that,” she said.

Bringing light to darkness is such a human need that we Americans almost fetishize it, but I had to agree. We are drawn to light. Those men from East, whoever they were, followed the light, too.

I’ve wondered if any of the folks who stormed the Capitol four years ago called themselves good Christians. Did they reckon that it was Epiphany and if so, how did they square their actions with what this day means. Instead of following a star, they took orders from a person they claimed was “anointed by God.”

Dangerous theology, no matter what day it happened. January 6, 2021, was a small “e” epiphany for a lot of us: a realization that the divide in this country was deeper than we’d like to admit. It’s important to remember that the people who stormed the government came not bearing gifts but weapons. They came not in adoration but with murderous intent. They came not in wisdom or awe but blind obedience.

We must not forget as we wait and watch for what comes next.

Joan Zwagerman intends to find light and joy wherever she can in 2025.