Lectionary Readings: Isaiah 60:1-6; Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14;  Ephesians 3:1-12; Matthew 2:1-12
Epiphany (Cycle C) and guidance for using the lectionary

“Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” – Mary Oliver

For many families it is rather customary to use the time off around Christmas and New Year’s to see at least one movie that is new for the holidays.  It’s always interesting to note which ones people choose to see and which ones become blockbusters.  Several years ago, even though there was a new James Bond movie released for the holidays, it was The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey that was the highest grossing film of the season.

In this prequel to J.R.R. Tolkien’s acclaimed trilogy The Lord of the Rings, we are introduced to endearing creatures called Hobbits, a fictional race of people who stand about half the average human height.  Though some live in houses, most dwell in simple underground homes built into the sides of hills with windows looking to the outside world. They live barefooted with no need for shoes because they have hairy feet with naturally tough leathery soles.

Hobbits by their very nature, do not like adventures—which is why the journey captured in this story is so unexpected. Hobbits like predictability, they love good food and ale, and they prefer to stay in the comfort of their own neat and well-kept houses.  They don’t much care for strangers, and they feel no need to venture out beyond the safety of the shire. When Gandalf, the wizard, approaches a hobbit named Bilbo Baggins about going on an adventure with a bunch of dwarves, Bilbo is highly resistant at first and tries to refuse the invitation. Gandalf responds with a challenge and bit of cynicism, “When did you get so attached to your mother’s doilies and china teacups?”

Gandalf’s communication strategy works, motivating Bilbo Baggins to embark upon the journey of a lifetime—the journey there and back again!

Averse to Adventure

Sometimes we Christians are more like hobbits than we would like to admit—having fallen into a pattern of assuming that the Christian life is all about maintaining our own personal comfort and preserving our well-ordered existence.  We, too, are rather attached to our creature comforts and would rather not give them up.  We are adept at avoiding strangers by surrounding ourselves with people who are just like us, so we never get very far outside our own echo chambers. We, too, feel no need to venture beyond the shire—that is, the safety of the life experiences and belief systems that have shaped us and give us the illusion of security.  If an adventure is offered, we are likely to decline as we would prefer a faith journey that doesn’t require much…well… faith.

Epiphany challenges this propensity towards staying safe.  It all begins by highlighting the unexpected journey of the Magi—three spiritual seekers willing to leave the safe and the familiar in order to find what their souls have been seeking.  These pagan astrologers had a longing for Something More and they had been seeking some sense of direction for a very long time. Day after day they looked up into the night sky, plotting the course of the stars, waiting for a revelation…and when that revelation came through a special sign in the heavens, they had a choice.  Would they embark upon a new adventure of seeking and finding, even though they had no idea where following this star would take them, or would they choose to stay safe, continuing to star-gaze, trying to gain more information?    

Our Gospel reading for today tells us that they chose this unexpected journey, and that choice made all the difference.

A Season of Spiritual Seeking

It may not surprise you to learn that Epiphany is my favorite season of the Church year because it centers the spiritual journey—the choice to strike out on a new (and potentially risky) journey of actively seeking rather than being complacent, cynical, or passive.  Whereas Advent emphasizes waiting (active waiting though it may be), Epiphany emphasizes active seeking, which has always been my bent. What does Epiphany have to teach us about our own adventures in faith?

For one thing, the story of these spiritual seekers ascribes worth to the practice of staying alert, attentive to signs that God may be up to something—even if it’s a practice as simple as looking up at the stars every night. This attentiveness is coupled with an attitude of radical readiness to take action based on what is revealed in and through those signs.

The journey of the Magi to find the Christ child imbues value and worth to both the seeker and the search, no matter how imperfectly that journey is carried out. It communicates that there is something inherently valuable in the journey itself and our willingness to risk everything to take it.  It affirms that being on the journey is what matters most because that is where God meets us. As St. Francis is credited with saying, “The journey is the destination.”

A Spirituality of Imperfection

One of the most striking elements of the Christmas story culminating in Epiphany is the imperfection of it all. None of the circumstances surrounding Jesus’ birth were ideal.  Jesus was conceived out of wedlock.  When the time came for him to be born, Mary and Joseph were on the road due to political forces beyond their control.  Because so many were traveling during this time and there was a shortage of adequate accommodations, Jesus’ parents had to settle for a much less than ideal situation for the blessed event of Jesus’ birth.

Beyond these intimate imperfections, the outer landscape was very bleak.  Jesus’ birth took place during a time of religious and political upheaval with a despotic king on the throne.  King Herod was a violent and insecure man who used power to shore up his own sense of self rather than harnessing power for the good of others.  Not knowing this, the magi made a grave mistake in alerting Herod to the birth of Jesus, a future king whom Herod immediately viewed as a competitor and a usurper.  This so infuriated Herod that he ordered what is now known as “the slaughter of the innocents”—the murder of all children who were two years old and under. The journey of the Magi becomes haunted by the sounds of mothers weeping for their children, refusing to be comforted.

Beyond Safety

So, what are we to make of all this? For one thing, there is never a perfect time to strike out on a new spiritual journey.  Jesus’ birth and all the events surrounding it took place during a season of real threat, times that were more conducive to staying in one’s own house with the curtains drawn rather than being out and about. 

All the major players in the Christmas story were in danger and had very little control over their circumstances. This was not a good time for spiritual seeking, for responding to signs in the heavens or worshipping a baby king in a manger.  But Jesus was born anyway.  The star appeared anyway.  And the Magi left their secure and protected environment to seek the One whose arrival signaled hope for them.  The One whose presence was bringing light to a very dark time.

Even though these “wise” ones created danger for themselves and others by what they shared with King Herod, God alerted them through a dream that their situation was not what it seemed and gave instructions for how they could return home safely. What this tells me is that we don’t have to be perfect in how we do our seeking.  In fact, I would say, forget about perfection!  We just need to stay alert to how God is leading along the way and be utterly responsive to it —whether that guidance comes through a dream or signs in the night sky.

The story of the Magi tells us that we don’t have to be afraid on our journeys even when there is danger all around.  God’s got us on our journeys, just like he had the Magi on theirs. God honors every attempt we make at seeking and finding by never leaving us or forsaking us. It is important that we know this for when we make our own mistakes or face our own dangers.

The Vulnerability of God

Then somewhere along the way on this journey of faithful seeking, God does the revealing. And this is the heart of Epiphany—we seek, and God reveals.  Epiphany marks the mysterious process whereby things that were hidden are now being made manifest. Paul, brilliant intellect that he was, tries to explain this in Ephesians 3:1-12 using the words like mystery, revelation, and bringing to light. What a humbling admission for a person like Paul to acknowledge that he could not think his way into the knowledge that he now possessed, but that he had needed to wait for the great mystery of our faith to be revealed in God’s way and in God’s time. Can we do this?  Can we let go of intellectual striving and wait for the mystery to be revealed in God’s time and in God’s way?

It seems to me that there is always some kind of letting go that must take place in order to be ready to receive God’s revelations.  We may have to let go of reliance on our own intellect.  We may have to let go of a belief system that we are now finding to be quite limiting.  We may have to let go of a community that doesn’t understand the seeker’s journey and what it requires. The Magi had to leave the king’s palace, letting go of the trappings of royalty and wealth, fancy titles and job security.  There was no fanfare, nor were there any special effects.  Just desire, resolve, and great risk leading to an ordinary barn in the hill country of Judea. And in the simplest of settings with the simplest and most unassuming of people, the mystery of God-in-Christ was finally being revealed.

The first thing that gets revealed is the vulnerability of God. To paraphrase Luke’s Gospel, “And this will be a sign for you: you will find God in the form of complete vulnerability, having given up all the trappings of royalty and any semblance of power and strength. You will find God completely open and available to the world, undefended and without resources except for what those who come to visit might bring. When you see this, you will begin to comprehend the mystery of God-in-Christ.” (Luke 2:12, author’s paraphrase)

Epiphany emphasizes the revealing of God’s self to ordinary people in ordinary places. But God’s vulnerability is only the beginning.  Epiphany draws us into a season of progressive revelation of God’s self in Christ.

A Season of Progressive Revelation

The coming of the Magi to the manger signals an important transition: What has been largely hidden or shared with only a few is now becoming more widely known.  There is a certain poignancy to this, and I remember this feeling from when I had my babies.  There was a blessed time (very short) when no one except my husband was permitted to be in the room with me and the new baby; and even as I savored the intimacy of this time, there was a sense that it was passing, that it was going to come to an end very soon. 

The funny thing was how mixed my feelings were during that time. With each birth I couldn’t wait to share my beautiful baby with others who would ooh and ahh and love the baby, too, but at the same time I sensed the preciousness of this intimate time before the big reveal.  I knew that once it was over, it would be over for good, and a new season would begin: a season of revelation in which life with this child would be a progression of sharing her with the world.  I knew that eventually we would leave the cloister of the hospital, and I would begin the journey of sharing this child with many others.

Epiphany represents this same kind of progression, moving from the small circle of those who were intimately involved in the Christmas story, to a wider circle of those who would come to know Jesus as well.  In the first Sunday after Epiphany, we skip to that very public moment when John prophesies about Jesus being the Messiah following Jesus’ baptism and the Voice from heaven proclaiming his identity as the beloved Son of God.  From there we witness the wedding of Cana where Jesus turns water into wine, the first revelation of his miraculous powers.

As the season moves along, we witness the power of Jesus’ preaching as he proclaims the true nature of the Gospel, which (interestingly enough) has nothing to do with going to heaven when we die and everything to do with provision for the poor and freedom for the oppressed. And in the fourth Sunday after Epiphany, we see that Jesus angers people with his preaching—so much so that they wanted to kill him—but he passes through the middle of the crowd and goes on his way. We learn that others who had been waiting for a sign (Simeon and Anna) recognized him for who he was even as an infant, and the favor of the Lord was upon him, even as a child. And the revelations continue with miracles and powerful preaching moments, all the way to that definitive moment when Jesus is transfigured before them and communes with Moses and Elijah on the mountain top.

A Season for Ordinary Mystics

Perhaps the most important thing we can say about Epiphany is that it is the season for ordinary mystics.  Do not be scared off by that term.  To be a mystic is to be one who is in touch with the  mysteries of our faith as Paul talks about in Ephesians 3.  To be a mystic is to be open to actually experiencing the things we say we believe—like the possibility of real encounters with the Divine in the midst of our everyday lives.

Mirabai Starr says that “To be a mystic is to have a direct experience with the sacred…mysticism is not about concepts; it is about communion with ultimate reality.” By this definition, everyone in the Christmas story and in the unfolding of Epiphany were mystics—ordinary mystics—who cultivated the capacity to recognize and respond to the signs of God’s presence coming to them in the most ordinary moments of their lives

My prayer is that each of us will accept the invitation contained within the season of Epiphany—the invitation to be mystics, too.  My prayer is that we will choose to pay attention…to be astonished… and to tell about it.

A Blessing for You

May the blessings of Epiphany be yours:
The blessing of moving beyond safety into unknown territories.
The blessing of trusting God amid imperfection, and maybe even a little danger.
The blessing of stumbling across a God who chooses to be revealed in vulnerability.
The blessing of ongoing revelation rather than a static faith.
The blessing of being an ordinary mystic,
open to the mystery of God-in-Christ revealed in your ordinary life.

© Ruth Haley Barton, 2025. Not to be reproduced without permission.