“Be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind”
Epiphany marks at once the culmination of the Christmas mystery in Bethlehem and extends its scope and meaning in wonderful ways. It inaugurates something new in what I like to call the break-out from Bethlehem, the journey not to Bethlehem but from Bethlehem, a journey of the understanding. The Magoi from the East, from Anatolia, as Matthew styles them, present their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, “sacred gifts of mystic meaning”, signifying Christ as King, as God, and as Sacrifice. But in the mystery of Bethlehem, they, it seems, do not hang around but “depart into their own country another way: having been “warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod” in Jerusalem which conveys a sense of fear and danger. As T.S. Eliot suggests, in returning to their own countries and kingdoms, they are “no longer at ease”, but have been changed in some way by what they have sought for and seen in the child-Christ at Bethlehem.
Epiphany means manifestation, the making known of the essential divinity of Christ, on the one hand, but also the making known of the divine will and purpose for our humanity, on the other hand. Both aspects are present in the Epiphany story and in the other readings that belong to the Octave of the Epiphany, such as the commemoration of the Baptism of Christ, an explicit manifestation of Christ as the Beloved Son of the Father upon whom the Holy Spirit descends “like a dove”. His baptism by John is for us and signals the divine purpose of Christ’s coming to inaugurate a new relation to God; in him will be the renewing of our lives through our incorporation into Christ’s death and resurrection through our baptisms. Thus his baptism is at once a divine epiphany of the Trinity through the Incarnation and marks the beginning of new life in us, a new life which means as well the mission of the Church in making known to the world the meaning of Christ as the saviour for all, omni populo, hence the readings appointed for the Missionary Work of the Church Overseas.
There the Epistle reading from Romans highlights the concept of Revelation through Scripture and the proclamation of the Word of God through preaching while the Gospel complements it with the divine commission in Matthew to “go” and “make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit;” and “teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you”. Word and Sacrament go together and belong to the idea of epiphany. Something is made known to us which is also to be made manifest in us.
Today is the First Sunday after the Epiphany and falls within the Octave of the Epiphany. The propers or readings also make explicit this twofold emphasis on the making known of the essential divinity of Christ and the making known of the divine will and purpose for our humanity. The themes are intimately connected; they belong to the reality of our lives as gathered into the Logos of God signalling the new solidarity and meaning of our humanity as found in the person of Christ. Both the Epistle and the Gospel show that what is made known is to be lived out in our lives; the point is made in the Collect in the prayer that “they [we] may both perceive and know what things they [we] ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to fulfil the same”.
We are set upon a journey which seeks the transformation of our humanity into the likeness of Christ, not to be conformed to the world but to be “transformed”, as Paul wonderfully puts it, “by the renewing of our minds”. I cannot think of this passage without calling to mind one of my mentors, Fr. Robert Crouse, for whom this was one of his most favourite Scriptural passages. It has everything to do with the idea of teaching and being transformed, changed into what we are given to see and learn. It is “a sea-change into something rich and strange”, as Ariel sings in Shakespeare’s The Tempest.
Paul’s phrase complements the Gospel reading from Luke which provides the only story of Christ’s boyhood in the canonical Scriptures, the story of his being found in the Temple with the doctors of the Law at once as student and teacher, having lingered behind rather than returning to Nazareth with Joseph and Mary who turn back to Jerusalem “seeking him”. Through Mary’s rather anxious question upon finding him in the temple, “Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? Behold thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing”, we have the epiphany moment of Christ’s sense of purpose and its extension to us. “Wist ye not” – did you not know – “that I must be about my Father’s business?” Other translations have “being in my Father’s house”, but either way it signals his identity as the Son of the Father. But “they”, Luke tells us, meaning Joseph and Mary, “understood not the saying which he spake unto them” though Mary, Luke tells us, “kept all these sayings in her heart”, an echo of the Gospel story for the Octave Day of Christmas and the Circumcision of Christ. This keeping of the sayings means to ponder and weigh their meaning and to allow them to shape and inform our being. Such is Mary and thus this essential Epiphany story marks the Marian character of the journey of the understanding into the greater mystery of God with us, the mystery of our incorporation into the person of Christ. We find the real meaning of ourselves as persons in him. Such are the lessons of the Epiphany.
It is a journey in which things are learned but only by paying attention to Christ in his embodied engagement with our humanity. It is the purpose of the Church to teach what Christ has taught about who we are in him. In him is life and light and grace and truth, not as an add-on to our quotidian or daily lives but as the true basis of our human identity as persons. It means treating one another as persons in Christ, seeing Christ in each other and being in Christ in lives of service and sacrifice. The transformation is a life-long process in which we seek to become more truly ourselves which means being who we are in Christ. It happens through the renewing of our minds on the things of God made known to us. Epiphany signals the motions of God’s light and life in Christ moving in us. It is about our growing in understanding of God in his self-relation and in his relation to us. We find the wholeness of our humanity and ourselves as persons in the reciprocal motions of divine love manifest in Christ.
And so we, too, have to be about our Father’s business since in Christ we are made the children of God. And we, like Mary, are to find Christ in the Temple, in the places where He is made known and revered, received and honoured. Epiphany then signals the true purpose of the Church to make known as present and alive the God who has been made known to us in the Incarnate Son. Epiphany is all about our attending to the mysteries of Christ in our lives together regardless of the tempests and storms of human sin and presumption. Here is the truth which transforms us into the likeness of Christ.
It is very much about the orientation and direction of our thinking and living. Rowan Williams draws upon a lovely image from a 5th century ascetic, Diadochus of Photike, about this sense of orientation in the journey of the understanding. “We are like a man”, he says, “facing east at dawn in winter: the sun rises and warms him in front while he is still aware of the chill at his back” (Looking East in Winter, 2021). Looking east in winter means looking to the light of Christ and letting that light increase and grow in us.
“Be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind”
Fr. David Curry
The First Sunday after Epiphany, January 9th, 2022
(under lockdown conditions owing to the episcopal suspension of services)