The Feast of the Epiphany, or Three Kings’ Day, is celebrated on January 6 each year. In the Latin and Eastern Orthodox Church it is the day when gifts are given and received. Matthew 2 records the visit of the Magi to Bethlehem. Because St. Luke does not mention the visit in his birth narrative, some people find the gospel accounts confusing. It would seem that after the birth, Jesus was circumcised and presented to the Lord in the Temple. Since Bethlehem was close to Jerusalem they probably went to and from the Temple for the ceremony, so they would have returned when the Magi arrived. It was after these events that they fled to Egypt to escape the massacre instigated by Herod. The visit of the Magi raises the question of how God revealed himself to them. All we are told is that they “saw his star in the east, and have come to worship him.” (Matthew 2:2)  Recently, a member of my congregation asked  whether there is room to believe that God reveals himself in different ways to different people. The story of the Magi seems to indicate that God can reveal himself through natural phenomena, as well as in other ways, to anyone he chooses.

Herodotus (484-425 B.C.) tells us that the Magi were a priestly caste, similar to medicine men and shaman groups, who specialized in interpreting dreams. They may have been Zoroastrian priests, since this was the religion of Persia at this time. They exercised a powerful influence throughout the region. Magi were common in the Mediterranean world and were by no means limited to Persian nationality. The term came to indicate a profession rather than any particular citizenship or culture.

Philo of Alexandria (20 B.C.–54 A.D.) commended the Magi, who were attached to highly placed Roman officials, for their research into the facts of nature. Cicero (102-43 B.C.) said that no Persian was able to become king who had not first mastered the scientific discipline of the Magi. Some Magi established a sound reputation for both character and learning. In the Old Testament, both Joseph in Egypt, and Daniel in Babylon, were considered to have achieved this status. The Magi who visited Bethlehem knew the stars and understood their meaning. This knowledge was a science that was deeply rooted in various peoples of the ancient Orient. In their case God revealed himself to them through the medium they knew best.

If God could do this for the Magi, the wise men of the east, could he not do so for others? The Bible indicates that God revealed himself to people through various means. He came to Moses in flames of fire from within a bush, as he was tending the flock near Mount Horeb. (Genesis 3) He came to Job (a non-Israelite like the Magi), out of a storm.

Another instance in God revealing himself in different ways to different people, is to be seen in the story of Baalam, He was a seer (a Magus) in the service of the king of Moab, but he acknowledged that it was the God of Israel who gave him his powers. He was summoned by Balak, king of Moab, to pronounce a destructive curse on Israel, but instead he uttered a series of blessings. Like the Magi in the Christmas story, Balaam came from the east, where he lived near the Euphrates River. God revealed himself to Balaam through the mouth of his donkey, and opened his eyes to the presence of the angel of the Lord standing in the road with his sword drawn to prevent him from passing. (Numbers 22) It is a remarkable story of how God spoke to a wise man, who was not of the tribe of Israel. God could use even an ass to reveal himself!

Finally, there is the story of Cornelius, in the Acts of the Apostles. St. Luke tells us that one day, at about three in the afternoon, this centurion in the Italian Regiment in Caesarea, had a vision. He saw an angel of God who came to him and told him to send for Simon Peter who was visiting in Joppa. Peter received his own vision to prepare him for the summons, and went with the men Cornelius had sent to escort him. After Cornelius told him of his vision, Peter replied, “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts men of every nation who fear him and do what is right.” (Acts 10:34,35) The message is clear: God makes no distinction between races (Jews and Gentiles) and he calls all equally, by the Spirit, to hear the Gospel and to receive the gift of faith in Christ. All these stories indicate that God reveals himself to all people. St. Paul tells us that “What may be know about God is plain to [all people], because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” (Romans 1:19,20)

One of the most common narrative patterns is the movement from ignorance to insight. The literary term for the climactic moment of insight or revelation, epiphany, was popularized by Irish novelist James Joyce (1882-1941). The stories of the Bible are filled with moments of epiphany in which characters have a sudden experience of realization. The whole action moves toward a climactic moment of insight into the nature of people or reality, or the nature of God. The purpose of the Bible is to move its readers to epiphany – insight into their own condition, into the nature of reality, and, above all into the possibility of redemption through God’s provision. An epiphany, therefore, is a sudden experience of realization, a revelation from outside one’s own consciousness. It is not my own self-realization, but a divine revelation.

Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004), winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1980, explains that this is what he seeks in poetry.

“Epiphany is an unveiling of reality. What in Greek was called epiphaneia meant the appearance, the arrival, of a divinity among mortals, or its recognition under a familiar shape of man or woman. Epiphany thus interrupts the everyday flow of time and enters as one privileged moment when we intuitively grasp a deeper, more essential reality hidden in things or persons….Epiphany may also mean a privileged moment in our life among the things of this world, in which they suddenly reveal something we have not noticed until now; and that something is like an intimation of their mysterious, hidden side.” (A Book of Luminous Things, p.3)

This was what William Blake was expressing when he wrote:

To see a World in a Grain of Sand,

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,

And Eternity in an hour.

The Magi saw the king of the Jews, the Christ, in a star, and traveled many miles across the deserts of the ancient Orient in search of the one it revealed. When they found him, their search was over. They bowed down and worshipped him, and presented him with costly gifts. Christians believe that the search for divine wisdom will eventually be fulfilled at the foot of Jesus.

God continues to reveal himself to us, and to all people. He does it through natural phenomena, through men and women, through events and situations, through art and music, through writings and sacred texts. He will do it through that medium which is most familiar to us. Above all he does it through the Holy Scriptures, and through an encounter with Christ. His purpose is to get us moving, to get us on the road, to follow the star in our lives. One of the biggest tragedies in life is to be blind and deaf to epiphany; not to hear or to see the epiphany. Or it is not to respond to what has been revealed to us. Or it is to be stuck in one place, and to be unwilling to move from where we are. Or it is to refuse to take action, to refuse to entertain an alternative, and to refuse to get on the road of discovery.

Each of the people in the Bible who experienced epiphanies was changed by his encounter: Moses, Balaam, Job, Abraham, Cornelius, the Magi. At the time they must have thought they were imagining something fantastic, that wasn’t real. But they were willing to listen and to act. In the process they were transformed into someone significant.

The Magi returned home different from when they started out. They would never be the same again. When something is revealed to you that you hadn’t noticed before, and you grasp a deeper, more essential reality hidden in things or people, you realize that you are not alone in the universe. Someone is speaking to you. Something important is happening. You need to take off your shoes for this is holy ground. You need, like the Magi, to bow down and worship Jesus. For, we believe, he is the end of our search. He is the manifestation of Love, and the revelation of Truth. When you experience this epiphany, you will be overjoyed.

But how can you experience such an epiphany? How can you experience the realization that God is revealing himself to you? An epiphany can occur in everyday life, through natural phenomena, through stars, bushes, storms, and donkeys. But you must be open to experience it. You must desire to experience it. You must believe that you can experience it. You must be humble enough to be willing to experience it. You can experience it through reading the Gospels.

French resistance fighter, army surgeon, Russian Orthodox Archbishop Anthony Bloom was a militant atheist who was searching for the truth. He writes,

“While I was reading the beginning of St. Mark’s Gospel, before I reached the third chapter, I suddenly became aware that on the other side of my desk there was a presence. And the certainty was so strong that it was Christ standing there that it has never left me. This was the real turning point. Because Christ was alive and I had been in his presence, I could say with certainty that what the Gospel said about the crucifixion of the prophet of Galilee was true, and the centurion was right when he said, ‘Truly he is the son of God.’ I did not discover the Gospel beginning with its first message of the Annunciation, and it did not unfold for me as a story which one can believe or disbelieve. It began as an event that left all problems of disbelief behind because it was a direct and personal experience.” (Beginning to Pray, p.xii)

Are you open to that sort of experience that can totally transform your life? Are you open to admitting your need for such an experience? An epiphany may only happen for you when you are open to it, when you are humble enough to recognize the limits of your understanding, and when you are willing to receive what God may reveal to you. You have to desire it, for it to happen. God will not force it upon you. It is your choice, the choice of faith.