My Epiphany

Thank you for visiting Unhurried Home! This is my post from last year (2016), when I first discovered the whole idea of Epiphany and our very simple, very last-minute celebration. Today I’m busy getting ready for our very first Epiphany party — we’ve never done this, so feel free to send me tips here or over on Facebook.

Yesterday was Epiphany, the day that we celebrate the three wise men visiting Jesus. We don’t know many of the details of that day – we don’t even know how many men there actually were. We do know, however, that they arrived much later after the birth than our Christmas cards depict – likely a whole year or two.

I reflected on their visit at our church service on Christmas Eve as my own 15 month old boy made a dash down the aisle for the third time in four minutes. Well, not so much reflected as commiserated with Mary because I can only imagine that the entire magi visit was exhausting.

I picture Mary getting Jesus’ lunch ready when the men arrived. She was carefully slicing the grapes in half lengthwise to reduce the chance of choking. Jesus was sitting on the floor near her, banging on some dishes with a spoon – the noise was annoying but at least it kept him occupied for a minute.

Then, out of the blue, a group of royal-looking men showed up at the door. Mary, pushing worries of a missed nap time out of her head, welcomed them in and frantically looked for a place to sit. Did they have chairs, lovingly hand-crafted by Joseph the carpenter? If they did, I’m certain that they all were laying on their side under a table to stop Jesus from constantly standing on the top of them.

You know how later on Satan tells Jesus to jump off a cliff because the angels will catch him? Toddlers don’t need the devil’s prompting; they will jump off of anything and everything, firmly convinced that if the angels are busy, a mother will be there to break the fall.

So poor Mary was busy putting all the chairs upright, muttering apologies as she dusted them them off. Jesus was not making matters easier because, overcome with shyness due to the strangers in the house, he was now clinging desperately to her legs. Mary didn’t get frustrated though – she seems like a very patient woman, based on the statues I’ve seen.

Once everyone had a seat, Jesus warmed up to the visitors and started playing peekaboo with them from behind Mary’s robe. At one point, they held out their gifts for him to inspect. Jesus immediately tried to eat the frankincense and then put the bowl of myrrh on his head like a hat, spilling the contents all over the ground. He immediately uttered an adorable little “uh oh” in Aramaic, which Mary and the wise men instinctively echoed back.

As Mary quickly cleaned up the myrrh, the wise men looked around for somewhere high up that they could stash the gold, safely out of Jesus’ reach. In the commotion, I can only imagine that Jesus snuck out the side door and started finger-painting on one of the camels with mud.

I guess we’re lucky that Matthew didn’t include any of the details in his gospel. It would have made the nativity pageant far too complicated to pull off, given how notoriously bad toddlers are at following stage direction.

Most nativity pageants I’ve been to have everyone visit on the night Jesus was born. I didn’t know that many Christians around the world celebrate the magi’s visit on a completely separate day from Christmas. Until last year, I never knew that December 25 was the first of 12 days of Christmas. For me, once Boxing Day hit, Christmas was over. And honestly, that was usually a relief.

Every year, I find myself more disappointed with Christmas. It just doesn’t seem Holy anymore. I want it to be a special time where we remember the birth of Jesus, but every year, the birth is overshadowed by presents and Santas and stockings and parties. I confess that I’ve become resentful that I have to share a meaningful holiday with people who couldn’t care less about the birth of Jesus.

And don’t get me wrong – I’m not the kind of Christian that gets angry when someone says Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas. I don’t care how my Starbucks cup is decorated. In fact, I’d prefer that fewer people celebrate Christmas. Celebrate something else. Have your sleigh rides and winter songs and turkey dinners on the Solstice instead and leave Christmas for Christians. Don’t co-opt our day as an excuse to party. (I can get kind of grinchy.)

Last year I was ready to give up on it all. I thought Christians should get together and have a secret Christmas where we celebrate without the extra fuss. Maybe in February, so we could get great deals on the leftover decorations.

Then, this year, I read this on the Christianity Today site:

“We love to find—or even invent—spiritual reasons for various cultural practices related to Christmas. For example, we give gifts to one other to remind ourselves of God’s great gift of Jesus to the world or of the gifts of the wise men to Jesus. That may sound nice, but is it biblical? Or do we really give gifts because that’s what our parents did and what everyone else we know does (except the Jehovah’s Witnesses, diehard secularists, and some religious purists)? What kind of parent would you be if you didn’t give your child a Christmas present (or, in many cases, a whole roomful of them)? Or, just imagine, if you didn’t celebrate Christmas at all (like the Puritans)? Very little is intrinsically spiritual or biblical about these kinds of expectations. They’re almost entirely cultural. That doesn’t make them necessarily wrong, but we shouldn’t invent biblical rationales to justify them.”

When I first read that, I honestly thought it was totally backwards. And dumb. Everyone knows that we exchange presents at Christmas because Jesus was God’s gift to us. I think. Or it might be because of the Magi. Whatever, I was more confused as to why everyone else exchanges gifts.

But for some reason I couldn’t stop thinking about that passage all day. Then sometime in the evening, my thinking suddenly shifted ever so slightly and I understood what the author was saying. Society hasn’t co-opted our holiday – we’ve co-opted theirs. We take the cultural traditions of the season – the Christmas tree, the yule log, the misletoe, the candy cane – and we try to give them Biblical significance. And we’ve been doing it ever since a Pope picked December 25 to be Christmas Day, replacing the pagan winter festival of the time. It all worked beautifully for a long, long time as much of the Western world identified as Christian, but now that society is becoming more secular, we’re stamping our feet and pouting that “our” holiday is being taken away from us. Was it ever ours to begin with?

Somehow, the thought that Christmas doesn’t belong to Christians was very liberating for me. I’m not obligated to participate, just like I’m not obligated to set off fireworks on Victoria Day or barbecues on Labour Day. I’m also invited to enjoy it for what it is – a cultural celebration. And I think I can embrace that.

I do wish that we had a different name for the two distinct celebrations – the cultural Christmas and the birth of Jesus. A different day would be even better. As I thought about that, I remembered hearing about Epiphany and decided to look it up on Google. I learned that Epiphany is the day when Christians celebrate the wise men coming. I learned that some people consider it a second Christmas and hold it in high regard as the day that God officially introduced himself to the Gentile world. I read about how people celebrate – taking down the tree, throwing Epiphany parties, eating cake with three beans hidden inside to decide who will represent the royal wisemen at the royal feast.

I knew that I wanted to mark the day but I wasn’t sure how. I asked my wise friend Jenny if she celebrates it and she replied:

My home school mentor celebrated by marking the holy nights (12 days of Christmas), when they were very introspective as a family, and kept things spiritually based. Basically, she said it’s a time to shed off the materialism of Christmas, and to really delve into focusing on Christ. … They also keep the tone of their home reverent by clearing out the old, and making quiet plans for the new year. … It’s been really lovely to just sink into it, and I feel this real relief of the “holidays’ and now it’s time to spend contemplating Christ. It’s like all the bustle and chaos is over, and it’s a simple, reflective time. Since she introduced the concept to me, I’ve really cherished it quietly.

And that right there is what I’ve been looking for. I love it.

Because it works, doesn’t it? For the rest of our society, Christmas is over on December 26. On Boxing Day, we shop. On New Years Eve, we party. On Jan 2, we see Valentine decorations on the shelves.

But as Christians, we can keep the Christmas party going. We can keep singing carols. We can feast some more. We can focus on Jesus. It’s like a secret Christmas that’s all ours.

Yesterday was our first time celebrating Epiphany. We tried our best to incorporate some traditions in a rushed, last-minute sort of way. We had a feast with the nice table cloth and wine glasses of grape juice and apple cider. We had a roasted chicken – well, rotisserie takeout – and we had cupcakes with (coffee) beans shoved inside two of them to determine who would represent the royalty at our feast. We read the bible story and we took down the tree. We had ice cream. Then we cobbled together some pretty star decorations to put on the walls, which helped make the room seem a little less dull now that the Christmas decorations are gone.

In all, it was a lovely evening. I can’t tell you how relaxed I felt as I ate dinner with my family. It was such a nice way to formally mark the end of the Christmas season, rather than our usual mom-couldn’t-stand-the-christmas-tree-taking-up-half-the-living-room-one-moment-longer-and-took-it-down-while-everyone-slept tradition that we usually follow.

What a blessing this second Christmas turned out to be. I love the days that I’m discovering in the liturgical calendar year – celebrations that I knew nothing about, that have been left untouched by the world. I feel like I’m discovering a whole secret side of my faith, rich with symbolism and beauty and even a touch of whimsy. And the Holiness that I’ve been craving.

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