Weeks After Epiphany (Mid-week Message)

Weeks after Epiphany—Green or White?

We are in the midst of the Season after the Feast of the Epiphany.  The altar and clergy were still dressed in the White of Christmastide for the Feast of Epiphany (Jan. 6) and the following Sunday (Jan. 13), the commemoration of the Baptism of our Lord.  In weeks to come, however, we will return to the Green of Ordinary Time before the start of Lent, when penitential Violet is used. 

The readings of this period between Epiphany and Ash Wednesday take up and make explicit the great themes of Epiphany:  the manifestation of God in Jesus Christ, the showing forth of Christ to the world, the shining of True Light in darkness that cannot overwhelm it.  This theme of light begins in the Christmas Day reading of St. John’s Logos hymn, where the light shines in the darkness, continues with the Magi’s star on January 6, and brings the Advent-Christmas-Epiphany cycle to a close on February 2 or Candlemas, which commemorates of the presentation of the baby Jesus in the Temple 40 days after his birth by a Service of Light and the blessing of Church candles on the 40^th day after Christmas.  The theme reappears again just before Lent with the brilliant light of Jesus’ transfigured face on Mt. Tabor. 

Because the date of Easter varies according to how the lunar calendar and new moons match the solar calendar and the Spring Equinox, the season of ordinary time after Epiphany can be as short as three Sundays and as long as eight.  This year, we have five. 

Many Episcopal Churches begin and end the Epiphany season each year with the hymn “Songs of Thankfulness and Praise”:  

Songs of thankfulness and praise,
Jesus, Lord, to thee we raise,
manifested by the star
to the sages from afar;
branch of royal David's stem
in thy birth at Bethlehem;
anthems be to thee addressed,
God in man made manifest.

Manifest at Jordan's stream,
Prophet, Priest and King supreme;
and at Cana, wedding guest,
in thy Godhead manifest;
manifest in power divine,
changing water into wine;
anthems be to thee addressed,
God in man made manifest.

Manifest in making whole
palsied limbs and fainting soul;
manifest in valiant fight,
quelling all the devil's might;
manifest in gracious will,
ever bringing good from ill;
anthems be to thee addressed,
God in man made manifest.

Manifest on mountain height, shining in resplendent light,
Where disciples filled with awe
Thy transfigured glory saw,
When from thence thou leddest them
Steadfast to Jerusalem
Cross and Easter Day attest,
God in man made manifest.

This hymn recounts in order the Gospel lessons for the season, starting with the star and Magi of Epiphany itself, the baptism of Christ, the wedding at Cana, Jesus’ wonderful acts, and finally the glorious light in Jesus’ face on the Mount of Transfiguration on the last Sunday before Ash Wednesday.  The hymn sees all these as evidence of God made manifest in a human being.

It is right to use ordinary time green for this season between Epiphany and Lent, since the Greek word epiphanaeia means manifestation or showing forth, and the whole point is that in Jesus God was shown forth to the whole world, the regular, ordinary world. 

Let us pray. 

Lord God, you were manifested to us in the life of Jesus, one of us in all ways but sin.  Help us show forth your love and beauty in the common, ordinary things of our day-to-day lives.   Through Christ we pray, Amen. 

Peace and Grace,

Fr. Tony+