Epiphany is a revelatory moment; an inspired insight into what God is revealing in us and around us.
That day we had a meeting here at our offices and when the meeting was over, I was asked to close it with prayer. In the context of the prayer, I referenced epiphany, and prayed that we as a group in particular and the larger church in general, might indeed experience not just this day of divine revelation, but rather a “season of epiphanies.” The response to the prayer was “wow, what an idea!; we do need more than a day to reflect on what God is revealing to us.” Thus it is that I found the next subject for CelticCrossings.
Epiphanies are more than just a burst of insight; most epiphanies I believe are calls to pay attention and to respond in some appropriate fashion. When St. Patrick was a young man growing up in Wales, he was captured by pirates and taken to a Celtic land we now know as Ireland. There he was kept as a slave and forced be a sheep herder. After enduring this period of slavery for about 6 years, Patrick had a vision, an epiphany; a moment of clarity of what God wanted him to do. Acting on that vision, Patrick was able to escape and return to his native country. Upon his return, he gave himself up to religious studies with the idea that God was calling him into the priesthood. But then Patrick had another epiphany. This time the insight which came to him called him to return to the land where he had been enslaved and to bring the gospel message to the people of Ireland. Indeed, through these revelations, God made it clear to Patrick that his call was not to the priesthood, but to the mission field.
This past week, the artist Andrew Wyeth died at the age of 91. I have long admired Wyeth’s artistic perspective, and at one point in my life, I lived not too far from his home in Chads Ford, Pennsylvania along the Brandywine River. In an interview on National Public Radio some years ago, Wyeth described his own process for getting into a subject to paint:
“It’s an enlightening, it’s a flash … and after you have that flash, of course comes the hard work of finally pulling it together and putting it down with as great simplicity as you can.”
I think of my own writing, now in these CelticCrossings postings, and before in my sermon preparations; I am at my best when there is that epiphany moment: that flash of insight into a biblical passage or into a cultural event or into a life experience that seems to come from beyond my own acumen and needs to be recorded. God the Creator reveals some new insight, and I try to listen and then to respond.
My favorite Irish author is Niall Williams. He wrote the critically acclaimed novel As It Is In Heaven, and his most recent work of fiction is John, a novel that depicts the last days of the apostle John’s life, first on Patmos, then in an area near Ephesus. John has had his revelation, the epiphany which led to the apocalyptic letter to the churches of Asia Minor. Now, towards the close of the novel, Williams offers his own fictional account of how John embraced these flashes of enlightenment from God and responded by bringing forth his own unique version of his experience of the Word made flesh:
He knows as he has not known before what is finite and what infinite. He knows that for light darkness is needed, and that his hundred years is not an end, but a beginning only. He raises up his hands as though to word sent long ago response is now received. … ‘Hall’luyah, Hall’luyah,’ he cries, and the disciples look to one another in awe and joy of what immanence is made manifest. Here is rapture and revelation. …
John sees.
And in that moment John knows the testament is not himself but the Word and what remains and what will remain to the last is just this … what gift he bears is not a narrative, is not a telling of what happened, but something other; it is a vision for all time, it is the very cornerstone of the vast church that looms in his mind.
He sees.
He sees and is humbled and uplifted both. … He says, ‘The Lord is with us.’ Then he asks that one of them write what he will tell.
He sits. A light is lit.
A season of epiphanies. A prolonged time of waiting expectantly for God to break into our consciousness and separate our plans from his plans. A flash of insight. We listen, or hope we listen, and then respond with keystrokes or brushstrokes; voice or footsteps.
I think it behooves us all not to take lightly those revelatory moments called epiphanies, for in that lightning flash of insight, God points us in the direction he would have us go. To paraphrase the words of Andrew Wyeth, after you have that flash, then comes the hard work of finally pulling it together and putting it down with as great a simplicity as you can. May you experience your own season of epiphanies, and may it be a long and fruitful one.
