The Feast Day of the Epiphany

Today is the Feast Day of the Epiphany, when we celebrate the ways in which the incarnation of God in the person of Jesus is revealed early in the Christ story. More specifically, the Feast of the Epiphany celebrates the arrival of the wise men from the East to see and bring gifts to the baby Jesus. Often, the Epiphany season also includes the baptism of Jesus, which in some Gospels, can include a descending dove and God telling us that Jesus is God's son, with whom God is well pleased.


Note that God is well pleased even before Jesus has done a thing. For those of us who suffer self-loathing because we feel we're not doing enough and we're not living up to our full potential, perhaps we could take this lesson and back off a little.

There are so many ways to celebrate.  Many of us will go to church, where we will contemplate the arrival of the wise men or the baptism of Jesus.  A year ago, I created this meditation with photos for Epiphany.

There are ways to celebrate at home too.  It's so rare that this feast day falls on a week-end day, which opens up so many possibilities.  We could bake 3 Kings Bread.  For a simple, relatively healthy, no kneading version, see this recipe with photos in this blog post.

If you want more suggestions for ways to celebrate this holiday today, this post at my creativity blog will give you some ideas.

Many of us will celebrate this feast day by getting ready to return to work tomorrow.  Some of us will celebrate by putting away the Christmas decorations.

But before we let go of Christmas entirely, let's take a bit more time to savor the season.  Have one last cookie or cup of Christmas tea.  Think about how you will continue to infuse sweetness into your post-holiday life.  Think about the twinkly lights and the star that is so central to the Christian Christmas story.  How can you get more light into your life?  What star waits for you to notice and to follow its guidance?  What gifts do you need?  What gifts does the world need from you?

Happy Epiphany!  May it be a year of light and a distant star that brings us to Good News.