Death, Birth and Epiphany

I was deep in the middle of thinking about the death of Stephen.  I did not know Stephen well. But I knew that he was a kind and compassionate soul, whose thirty years on this earth were complex. I was trying to figure out how to say well, “But, while death is the final battle in this life, for those who die in God’s merciful arms, we have the promise that death has been defeated.”  It is an easy message to write; it is a hard message to deliver to the grieving.  Either way, honestly, their young son and brother is gone, absent from them. For now.

In the middle of that thought the phone rang and it was another mother I had been praying for earlier that day. The mother announced, “Our baby was born today!”  And so we talked about the birth process, and all that went with it, and how, in the end, when Evelyn was revealed, the room was filled with joy.

As we talked, I told Mom, “I am so excited that Evelyn is an Epiphany baby.” That didn’t get a big reaction. I explained that Evelyn was born on January 6, the day the Church celebrates Epiphany, the revealing of Jesus to the world as the long-awaited Messiah; the day when the Wise Men show up with gifts. Evelyn will be celebrating as long as she lives Epiphany as it should be, with the exchange of gifts to celebrate birth.

As I turned back to my funeral message I was still thinking about Evelyn, how exciting it will be to baptize her, to tell her that Jesus is her brother, and that God has marked her as his own forever. Which led me to think about Stephen’s baptism, some thirty years ago.  God gave a sign then too, to Steven and his parents: “this child is my own forever.”  It is good to remember baptism’s meaning. Perhaps this is why, on the first Sunday after Epiphany, we celebrate the Baptism of Jesus, because baptism is a time of revelation, of discovery. Baptism is an epiphany.

Epiphany is a season of discovery. Discoveries made as baby Evelyn cascaded through the canal into the light; as Stephen was drawn from the darkness of his own hospital room into the Light of the presence of God-With-Us.  Discoveries are still to be made, by you, as you look for God’s revealing light through the “thin places” that separate earth from heaven.  Jesus is still being revealed and discovered. The wise set out on a journey of discovery in this season, praying for eyes to see Light and Hope revealed in dark places.  Let the journey begin, o wise ones.