Dear Caldwell,
Today (Friday, Jan. 6) is the Epiphany of the Lord. It comes as we ended the season of Christmastide yesterday. In Epiphany, we celebrate the incarnation of our Savior, Christ Jesus. We rejoice in the “cross-shaped” light that is God come into the world for our sake, descending along a vertical access and spreading horizontally to cover the earth, a true Light to the world.
The word history tells us even more. Epi (manifest, come suddenly, show off) + Phantasm (to bring to light, make appear; come to light, be seen, appear; explain).
I, for one, am glad this comes every year, because I know I need a good jolt of understanding any time I can get one. I tend to prefer to think about Epiphany rather than making a New Year’s resolution, which has become such a diluted notion. I lean forward in a particular direction, hoping that something I need to be clarified will be, in and through Christ.
So, rather than a resolution, the “epiphany” I want to carry into the new year is a renewed effort to avoid generalities, especially about people. We live in such highly complex times. Human nature compels us to try to simplify this complexity, to reduce it to something we can get our arms and minds around. So, as for me at least, I know my mind wants to generalize, to make assumptions about people or even groups of people. Intellectually, of course, I know better. But I am ever more aware that my first instinct in these highly divisive days in America, in these times when our world is so carved up into ideologies, sectarianism and other old tribal human instincts, is to try to explain someone’s behavior with a generalization.
One of my questions for God will be why we as people are so innately tribal, why we tend so strongly to gather with and among only our “own.” It must be related, at some level, to a survival instinct. But I can’t imagine this is God’s idea for us to live life as fully as it is offered. And we don’t have to look far to see evidence that this kind tribal living is no good for our nation, our state and our city.
Selfishly, I’m grateful that my doctorate study is closely related, specifically focused on the promise we have from God to be one “in Christ” while maintaining the distinct blessings and gifts of our individual identities, to seek unity amid diversity that does not diminish any individual or group but, rather, allows us to grow through others, especially Christ.
What is your “epiphany” for the new year? What truth do you want to seek ever more deeply?
If you want to carry on the conversation with your Caldwell friends, you can do so on our Facebook Caldwell Conversations page.
See you soon, I hope.
In Christ
John