Epiphany

Sunday Sermonette

The Liturgical Year, as defined by the Catholic Church, is made up of six seasons:

• Advent – four weeks of preparation before the celebration of Jesus’ birth

• Christmas – recalling the nativity of Jesus Christ and his manifestation to the people of the world

• Ordinary Time 1 – a span of 4-8 weeks after Christmas Time (in 2026, January 12 through February 17)

• Lent – a six-week period of penance before Easter (in 2026, February 18 through April 2)

• Sacred Paschal Triduum – the holiest three days of the Church’s year – Holy Thursday to the evening of Easter Sunday

• Easter – 50 days of celebration of the Lord’s resurrection from the dead and his sending forth of the Holy Spirit (celebrated as Pentecost). In 2026, this season runs from Easter (April 5) to Pentecost (May 24)

• Ordinary Time 2 – approximately six months between Easter and Advent.

I’ve always kind of liked the identification of more than half of the year as “ordinary time.” When the Church first used this term to identify the undramatic portions of the liturgical year, it meant a season that was ongoing, purposeful, heading toward something. Not a dull or unremarkable period, but one that challenged believers to be faithful when nothing dramatic is happening. Ordinary time represents how believers live in response to the truths revealed in the Church’s Big Deal events. The fact that liturgical churches often use green for vestments and altar decor during Ordinary Time underscores the importance of this time — green symbolizes growth, continuity, and maturation. If the liturgical year were a novel, the feast days would be the plot twists, and ordinary time would be the evolution of the characters and events that create the dramatic turning points. This suggests that what are sometimes disdainfully called CE Christians — Churchgoers who only show up on the feast days — are missing the point.

Many Protestant churches – particularly those that consider themselves liturgical churches – observe these seasons of the church. Anglican/Episcopalian, Lutheran, Methodist, and Presbyterian churches are liturgical; Baptist, non-denominational evangelical, Pentecostal, Churches of Christ, and Quaker are not officially liturgical churches, although some of them informally observe the liturgical seasons and order of worship.

Although January 6 is the official liturgical date for Epiphany, many liturgical churches celebrate Epiphany Sunday on the first Sunday after January 1. In 2026, that’s today, January 6.

The word “epiphany” has crossed over into non-religious use to refer to something akin to “realization” – an “aha moment” that often emerges in the midst of some other activity.

I had an epiphany while I was taking a walk yesterday – I realized that at my age I may not have to worry about the long-term effects of anything.

However, the church’s celebration of Epiphany is confusing because, depending on the religious tradition, it can mean several different things.

• In Western Christianity, Epiphany symbolically commemorates the Visit of the Magi – the revelation of Christ to foreigners and outsiders – gentiles – not just Israel. Epiphany is sometimes called “Three Kings Day.” There is no evidence that the Wise Men visited Jesus on this date – just as there is no evidence (and plenty of counter-evidence) that Jesus was born in December. These dates are a convenience that became a tradition and then back-formed into a perception of historical accuracy. Many Protestant church services feature carols associated with Epiphany on this Sunday: As with gladness, men of old” and We Three Kings, whose minor key and unusual intervals sound foreign to my western ears and sensibility.

• In Eastern Christianity, Epiphany commemorates Jesus' baptism by John in the Jordan River. This is a public revelation of divine identity that occurs just before his public ministry begins. Some eastern churches that are still following the Julian calendar celebrate Ephiphany on the date that the rest of the world recognizes as January 19

• In early Christian tradition, the Wedding at Cana – Jesus’s first public miracle of turning water into wine – his sometimes included in this celebration.

The commonality among all of these meanings is ‘revelation.’ At Christmas, Jesus enters the world; when the Wise Men visit, he is revealed to the Gentiles; and at the Wedding at Cana, his power is revealed. Epiphany doesn’t exist in chronological time – it is a conceptual ordering of events that are essential to the Christian worldview. They had to happen for Christ to be Christ, so the events were structured in a cohesive narrative that allowed believers to create the Church. In many ways, other Christian feast days – All Saints Day, Pentecost, various Saints Days – serve the same purpose. They become fixed in the liturgical year because they serve the purpose of forming and maintaining the Church writ large.

In many localities, Christians observe Twelfth Night (Epiphany Eve) on January 5. Shakespeare wrote a play about this. Without going into detail (mainly because I don’t know that much about the play), it celebrates a tradition in late medieval England that celebrated choosing a Lord of Misrule – a temporary, mock ruler – to preside over games, feasting, disguises, and sanctioned disorder. This temporary inversion of the social order and the ensuing chaos always led to the restoration of normal authority.

We also sing the Twelve Days of Christmas to mark the period between Christmas and Epiphany. This song starts out simply but adds a variety of increasingly noisy and chaotic characters to the story. The number 12 matters in Christian culture beyond the 12 days of Christmas – there were twelve apostles and twelve tribes of Israel, but the theory that this song contained some secret coded Catholic catechism used when Catholicism was persecuted in England has been discredited. According to this theory, the Partridge was Christ, the turtle doves were the Old and New Trestaments, The books of the Torah were the Five Golden Rings, the Lords a-Leaping were the Ten Commandments, and so forth.

Here’s my favorite version of this song.

It’s apparently okay to wish someone Happy Epiphany (or Blessed Epiphany) because it’s a feast day, not a solemn occasion. So Happy King’s Day, y’all.