Christmas & Epiphany: The Sunrise From On High
by Dr. Gregory Thompson
Messiah by He Qui, 2004.
“Because of the tender mercy of our God...the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet in the way of peace.” - Luke 1:78-79
Just a month or so ago Christians began our yearly pilgrimage through the church calendar, marking our days by the birth, ministry, suffering, death, resurrection, ascension, and Pentecost of Jesus. In one of my favorite phrases, the liturgical theologian Gregory Dix refers to this process as “the sanctification of time.”
All of this began, you will remember, with Advent—the season of darkness, of longing, of the quiet, hidden growth of the life of Christ within and among us. This is precisely the place where all Christian things, indeed, all true things, begin.
In a deeply Christian movement, however, we have now moved from this season of darkness into a season—two seasons, in fact—of light. The first of these is Christmas. This song of this season, a song taken from the first songs of Mary and Zechariah, is that in Jesus, the light has come to us. Do not rush over this too quickly, familiar though it is. For what it proclaims is that those of us who dwell in darkness—the darkness of loneliness, grief, disappointment, addiction, and fear—are not alone. To the contrary, that it is precisely these places of darkness to which God has come. Because of this, even when the world feels to be closing in upon us (as it seems daily to do) it is, in fact, never closed. Always the light comes in, stays in, and is not overcome. In Jesus, the light of the living God has come to us. This is the essence of our consolation. Alleluia.
This light, however, cannot be contained to one season. And so we pass immediately into the next season: Epiphany. The song of this season, built not only on the songs of Mary and Zechariah, but also on the songs of the shepherds and the Magi (that is, those who are live at the margins of the story) is that the light that has come to us in Jesus, also goes out from us in love. Epiphany is, in other words, a season of mission, a season that celebrates the ministry of Jesus going to the “least of these.” Again, do not rush over this too quickly. For what it proclaims is that the light that has come into our darkness also seeks to come into our neighbor’s darkness, our enemies’ darkness as well. In this respect, the light of Jesus is best understood not as the light that merely illumines our own personal shadows (though it does that), but as a light that—by its very nature—illumines the shadows of the entire world. It is, as Zechariah so beautifully put it, like a sunrise. The message of Epiphany, then, is that in Jesus, the light has God has come to the entire world. And bearing this light is the essence of our vocation. Again, alleluia.
Taken together, these seasons of light remind us of one of the central convictions of the Christian life: That in Jesus Christ, the light of God comes both to us and through us. It reminds us that the consolation of our souls and the calling of our lives is, in the end, the same: the Sunrise from on High. And our life, in this season (and in every season) is best understood as a life of receiving the light of God in Jesus Christ and bearing that light to the whole of the earth.