This Friday, January 6, is “Epiphany” on the Christian calendar. Because it does not fall on a Sunday, only the most liturgical traditions will hold worship services, and only the most observant will attend. The rest of us may or may not have observed Epiphany last Sunday. Since it was New Year’s Day, and the readings for the second Sunday of Christmas lent themselves well to a reflection on the transition from old to new, I suspect many congregations, like my own, did not.
The first Sunday after Epiphany is the time to remember Jesus’ baptism and renew our baptismal vows. Since this occasion has become one of the more moving worship services of the year for our congregation, Epiphany, at least this year, gets short shrift.
Or does it?
In Western Christianity, Epiphany is the time to remember the visit of the Persian Magi to see the Christ child. It is therefore an extension of the Christmas season, inviting further reflection on gift-giving, as well as on the revelation (“epiphany” means “revelation”) of Christ to the Gentiles. Tradition has bolstered the Magi’s Gentile identity by refashioning them as “three kings” from across the Orient. But in Eastern Christianity, Epiphany has always been about Jesus’ baptism. And since Eastern Christianity (which traces back to the church at Antioch) is older than the Western tradition (with roots in Rome), our remembrance of how Jesus was revealed to be “Son of God” at his baptism actually reflects the oldest understanding of Epiphany.
The history of how Eastern and Western Christianity diverged on the meaning of Epiphany is rather murky but also fascinating (at least to me). The first Christian festival was the celebration of Christ’s resurrection. On Resurrection Sunday (later called “Easter”), converts to Christianity were baptized into the faith. Consequently, this celebration was preceded by a period of fasting and meditation (later called “Lent”) when initiates prepared to receive new life from Christ. This time of preparation lasted forty days, following the example of Moses (who fasted forty days on Mt. Sinai), Elijah (who fasted forty days on the side of Mt. Horeb), and Jesus (who fasted forty days in the wilderness in preparation for his public ministry).
As Christianity grew, it became increasingly impractical to limit all the baptisms to one day a year. At some point, the early church added a second day – the commemoration of Jesus’ baptism. Following the pattern of Lent and Easter, the church established a 40-day season of fasting and meditation for those converts who would enter the waters of baptism in early January.
Here’s where the history gets murky. The Western church, dogged by controversies over the true nature of Christ, found it necessary to mark the miraculous birth of Christ. “Christmas” emphasized how Jesus was both human and divine – human because he was born of a woman just like everyone else, divine because he was conceived by the Holy Spirit. Since pagan solstice festivals celebrating the birth of the Sun provided a natural way to celebrate the birth of the Son of God, the Western church set Christmas in late December. But this date was about ¾ of the way through the penitential period preceding the observance of Jesus’ baptism. Consequently, that 40-day season was divided into two sections: Advent (28 days at its longest) and Christmas (twelve days). Epiphany was transformed from the revelation of Jesus as Son of God to the revelation of Christ to the Gentiles. In this altered calendar, the celebration of Jesus’ baptism was postponed until the Sunday after Epiphany. Eastern Christianity continued to regard Jesus’ baptism as the “beginning of the gospel” (following the gospel of Mark), and the revelation of “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (following the gospel of John). Western Christianity, on the other hand, chose to emphasize the birth narratives found in Matthew and Luke.
All of this leads me to wonder how different Christianity would be today if there had never been “Christmas,” which didn’t exist until 300 years after Jesus’ earthly ministry. For one thing, the primary importance of Easter would be obvious. For another, the confusion between the secular and sacred that gives us fits every December would never have occurred. I suspect there also would have been more clarity over the meaning of Christian baptism, rather than the myriad disagreements that have divided Christians for centuries.
On the other hand, the church would have missed the opportunity to bear witness to the “Light” in a time of darkness. Since Christmas set an important precedent for how the church evangelized the world, Christianity likely would have emerged as less “incarnational” and more “sectarian.” In other words, Western Christianity would have been more consistently counter-cultural rather than entering into already-existing traditions and seeking to bring new meaning to them. In addition, we would have been deprived of close reflection on some of the richest material in the gospels.
I am always grateful for Advent and Christmas, and I don’t mind wrestling with the tension between the secular and sacred around the time of the winter solstice, but I also see the wisdom of assigning at least as much importance to Jesus’ baptism as to his birth. As it is, too many Christian traditions give little more than lip service to this pivotal event in Jesus’ life. The unfortunate result, it seems to me, is that we lose the connection between Jesus’ baptism and our own. We miss the clear teaching of scripture that, in fact, we don’t each have our own personal baptisms; rather, we participate in the one baptism of Christ. There is “one Lord, one faith, one baptism,” Ephesians 4:5 declares. There is not a Catholic baptism, a Lutheran baptism, a Methodist baptism, and so on. Nor are there “individual” baptisms. We are baptized “into Christ.” We enter into Christ’s baptism and become, with him, children of God.
I am grateful that, in our congregation as well as in a growing number of others, the annual observance of Jesus’ baptism has become a high moment on the calendar when we repeat our baptismal vows and renew our participation in Christ’s baptism. Baptism of Christ Sunday may be properly called “Epiphany,” a revelation not only of the nature of Christ, but of our nature as adopted children of God, brothers and sisters of our Savior.
Copyright 2012 by J. Mark Lawson
Comments