Acknowledging and Embracing the Epiphany

How do we acknowledge the appearance of God in our lives? This question may seem redundant especially after we have, not long ago, finished the introspective period of Advent, where we pondered the ways that we can live better lives as God's children before the second coming of Christ in divine glory and then joyously celebrated the blessing of the first coming of the Christ child at Christmas only 10 days ago. But, as we are coming to the end of the Christmas season, the days between Christmas day and the Epiphany of the Lord this Sunday which begins the season of Epiphany, it is the proper time to ask such a question.

The year new year of 2019 has come, and we can look back on 2018 and gain a bit of perspective on what that year meant to us and the lives that we have lost here on earth through death as well as the lives we are just getting to know as newborns. Both have deeply impacted us in very different ways. We are embracing the potential in Christ of the young lives that are just beginning and have embraced the loving memories of those we can no longer see, hear, or touch.

Let's allow the season of Epiphany 2019 to lead us to also embrace the people who are manifesting God in them but have not sufficiently, to this point, felt acknowledged as God's children. This Epiphany season is a perfect opportunity to recognize the appearance of God through them, as God calls us to search for them as proof of God present among us just us the three Magi did in Matthew 2:1-12, this Sunday's Bible reading. The Magi traveled great distances from divergent regions to worship, honor, and acknowledge the child called Jesus as the Savior of the world, who is also embodied in the people surrounding us who are overlooked and unrecognized like Jesus was as a child.