Friday, January 6, is the Feast of the Epiphany. This feast celebrates God’s revelation of himself in the person of Jesus Christ to a world blinded by sin. In particular, the feast celebrates not only that God has revealed himself to the Jews through Jesus, but has also revealed himself to the Gentiles. This is why the ordinary reading for January 6 is the story of the Magi, who were the first Gentiles to worship Christ.
It is startling that from his infancy, Jesus Christ received the worship and prayers of Gentiles. There were other incidents along the way—a Roman centurion, a Canaanite woman, and a group of Greeks all sought Jesus for one reason or another. The disciples had a hard time with this, and it took time for them to understand what it meant that salvation was not just for the Jews, even if it was from the Jews (Jn. 4:22). Acts 10 and 11 reveal Peter’s struggle to accept this, and Acts 15 is a record of the church’s wrestling with how to incorporate Gentiles into a Jewish church. Paul calls this inclusion of the Gentiles a “mystery” (Eph. 3:6), which demonstrates how stunning it was to the Jews that Gentiles, who were not recipients of the promises given to Abraham, were included in salvation.
We now take for granted that we have been included, so much so that we are rarely amazed by the fact that God has revealed himself to us. But Epiphany is our once-per-year reminder that what we take for granted is actually startling—we did not deserve it and we were not promised it, and yet God still revealed himself to us! We, who were blind, lost, and dead in our sins (Eph. 2:1), have been shown the “light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (II Cor. 4:6). This should bring us to our knees in wonder. God has revealed himself to us!
Steven+