Epiphany as Universal
O Lover,
Sunday last was the the Feast of the Epiphany, the final day of Christmastide. The liturgical meaning of epiphany is rich indeed: disclosure, revelation, manifestation, showcasing. Praise be to You: initiator, agent, and actor throughout the Advent-through-Epiphany saga.
But what can be said of this denouement concluding the six-week season? In short, what specifically is showcased in this feast? I focus here on but one strand of arguably the greatest liturgical fabric existent, that being the expansion of the context of said feast to encompass the universal, the cosmic, all creation. The lectionary’s Epiphany texts are saturated with this theme: the envisioned convergence of the nations around Your light (Is 60:1-6 & Ps 72); the explicit inclusion of us gentiles in Your all-encompassing embrace (Eph 3 [& 2]); and the culminating saga of the Magi, oriental questers from beyond the pale, inexorably drawn by Your same light (Mt 2:1-12). To this list might have been added the eight-fold Colossians attribution of “all things” to Your Christ in what is surely the most forceful “cosmic Christ” declaration in all Holy Writ (1:15-20); images from the Jesus tradition such as 2nd C Justin Martyr’s Lógos spermátikos (“ubiquitously broadcasted seed”); and a plethora of cosmogenetic breakthroughs during my own lifetime. From the very beginning of the Jesus tradition the scale of the Christ event was and is pressing toward expansion, encompassingness, cosmicity. The Feast of the Epiphany is a liturgical showcasing of Your ever-expanding Self-disclosure of the scale of Your heílsgeschichte (“salvation”), of Your “new heaven and a new earth” (Is 65:17; Apoc 21:1).
What are the implications of this expansion of scale of the Christ? I cite but three from a much longer list. First, the macrocosm (“largest possible picture”) of Your salvation is the totality of Your creation. While the individual is included in this whole—Cynthia Bourgeault writes of the “pixel” of the totality—the reduction of Your salvific work to the personal requires a radical dilation. In short, my individual salvation finds its full meaning only within the context of Your cosmic dream of “all in All” for “all things” (I Cor 15:20-28). Few learnings have surfaced in our society in recent years as self-evidently as have the triviality, corruptibility, and manipulability of privatized notions of salvation.
A second implication of expansion to the cosmic involves the planet’s various faith traditions. Amid major differences, repeatedly distorted by ignorance and prejudice, there has nevertheless emerged a growing awareness of commonality of longing for union with You, especially among those on the mystical rather than dogmatic and ideological edges of the traditions. Tragic shared history notwithstanding, this kinship of thirst for You is now showing itself to to be profoundly transformative, and it needs to be responded to with respect, awe, humility, and open hearts rather than imperialism of spirit. Although much listening, silence, and shared practice remain to unfold, there is a growing awareness that Your vision for “making all things new” (Apoc 21:5) is vastly larger than Jesusolatry, any religious tradition, or theological constructs. Among many other images of that vastness in the Apocalypse are the trees of life flanking the river of life flowing from Your throne, “the leaves of the trees [being] for the healing of the peoples” (22:2).
Finally, Your inherent bent toward expanding Self-disclosure implies that the Incarnátio, beyond both event and dogma, is Your revolutionary paradigm for everything and all-time; Your Presence ever has been, and ever shall be, intrinsic to all having being; all assessments of the ebb and flow of life and death are forever reset in the Christ event; the cosmic horizon toward which all faith traditions variously lean is shown to be profoundly Christic. Indeed, “If anyone is in Christ: a new creation!” (II Cor 5:17) Outside of the audience of Your Self-disclosure showcased on Epiphany there is . . . nothing.
A succinct Pauline summary, O Lover: “Jesus Christ: Lord [Kurios]” (Phil 2:11).
