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Illuminating Realization
I am driving up the street and following, perhaps too closely, the elderly man in an oversized sedan who comes to an almost complete stop before he makes a right turn into the parking lot. All civility sluices from my soul in an instant. I drive down the highway or over the interstate and I want to cut in front of the little red sports car or blast them when they do it to me. Driving in San Antonio or in any large city can rankle even the most patient driver.
Then I remember an epiphany I had several years ago. Just in the middle of a simple conversation with a friend, Mary Agnes, I looked into her face and, for no explainable reason, I saw not her face but the face of God. Oh My Gosh!! What if the driver in the oversized sedan or the red sports car were Mary Agnes? Now when I am tempted to rage and rant, I pretend the driver is Mary Agnes. If that driver were Mary Agnes, I would be thrilled to meet her on the road.
It was an illuminating realization, it was sort of an epiphany, a memorable meeting. One of the non-canonical sayings of Jesus is: "A person who sees his brother sees his God." The image of God is in the face of our brother, who is also the brother of God's Son, of God's own likeness (Col 1,15).
Epiphany in the Greek means to manifest or to show. It also is the Christian feast day (this year, January 3) which celebrates the revelation of God in human form in the person of Jesus Christ. It is an illuminating realization or discovery, often resulting in a personal feeling of wonder or elation.
An Epiphany that makes a difference in the way we live is a true manifestation that God is with us. As we travel the highways, byways, and skyways, do you see God in the faces of fellow travellers? Who is your Mary Agnes?
~Jan |
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When the Angels Left - by Bill
Somehow, I heard the old words fresh when they were read at this year's Christmas Eve service: "When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds...."
Well, the shepherds were left pretty much where many of us are left after Christmas. We have witnessed beauty and heard of great wonders; some of us feel a deep and holy awe. But now, once again, the skies are empty and dark. We look around and see the same routine tasks, many of them tedious, and the same companions, who show every sign of being just as irritating or boring or clueless in the new year as they were in the old.
And if we follow the shepherds to Bethlehem seeking signs of this "good news of great joy"? Like them, we will find no royal splendor, but only a humble family in a smelly stable, the hopes of the world cradled in straw.
This, my friends, is good news. Holiness is to be found in ordinary places, in the daily tasks of human living. God dwells in stables as well as temples. And those companions who sometimes irritate, and sometimes bring great joy? Each of them is a child of the living God, no less than the babe in the manger.
"When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds" still had sheep to tend, and family issues to face. They still had to deal with human weaknesses, both their own and those of others. But they returned to their daily routines, "glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen."
What had they seen? The United Church of Christ Statement of Faith puts it this way: "In Jesus Christ ... God has come to us and shared our common lot." Struggles, doubts, and frustrations included. A newspaper once sarcastically described an upscale suburb as "a nearly-perfect town for nearly-perfect people." That's not where Jesus was born. Instead, wrote Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God "takes on human nature as it is."
No pretense necessary. No whitewashing required to hide our flaws from God. God knows. And God loves.
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