Having an Epiphany

David Orendorff · Luke 3:15-17, 21-22 · January 7, 2007

It is the season of Epiphany. But what is an epiphany and have you ever had one? Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Fifth Edition defines epiphany as "a manifestation, especially of a divinity."

We are not speaking of the white fluffy divinity that melts in your mouth (I'll bet it didn't last long) Christmas candy. Nor are we speaking of fact that I am a Master of Divinity, which says much about my endurance and very little about the state of my soul. The divinity we speak of is God. To have an epiphany is to see, or hear or somehow recognize that God is present in this now.

Jesus, like many others, was baptized by John in the Jordan. Coming up from the water he heard a voice from heaven saying, "You are my beloved son, with you I am well pleased." What was the ordinary moment of a bath, in the context of dedication to the God of servant love, becomes a sacred moment, a manifestation of divinity. Jesus has an epiphany.

In the Christian season of Epiphany we acknowledge and celebrate such manifestations. January 6 is the traditional day of Epiphany for western Christians. On it we celebrate the coming of the magi to the infant Jesus.

Aside from the calendar saying that its time to remember the stories of when divinity has been manifest do we have any epiphany stories of our own? Do we have anything to celebrate in our own memories of the divine being present or must we rely upon what someone else said about third parties who lived long ago in another country and among another people? When did you last say to someone, or to yourself, "Look, look there is God," or "I hear God in that," or "surely that was a God thing?"

Maybe some of us don't have epiphanies. Maybe some of us are asleep to God among us. Perhaps seems OK to us and we pretty much just do what we do and live how we live without thinking to much about "manifestations of divinity."

I know a few folks who almost daily struggle with the question of epiphany. For these few, life has been difficult. They are my friends who struggle against debilitating diseases of body and mind. One of them has some kind of neurological degeneration that has not been successfully diagnosed and therefore goes untreated. One of them suffers from chronic depression and even when things go right is sad, can't sleep, constantly analyzes and remains unhappy. Another has lost his child to sudden tragedy and cannot escape the grief.

Each of these asks me about Epiphany by saying something like, "I call to God, I beg for some time of divinity, for serenity, for compassion in my life but my calls have no answer. I sometimes think I call into an empty space where there is nothing, no one, no thing, no voice, no wisdom, no caring, no hope, just an uncaring silence."

They want to believe that the universe cares, they want to feel the compassion of the divine but they have found no assurance in their prayers. It is a very frightening experience to call to God and to have no feeling or sense of response, to feel finally and absolutely alone in the world, to be without an epiphany.

Usually my friends come to me when they have exhausted themselves in the struggle and they seem to hope that I can help them see, hear, or feel the presence, the manifestation of God. What do I say? How do I give to another the vision of the divine in their life? I don't know.

Mostly, I try to listen and let them tell of their pain. I believe that in the telling God is speaking and in the listening together we are listening for God's response. I tell them I don't know the answer for them. I encourage them to keep on with the spiritual disciplines of surrendering to God in worship, study, prayer and service. But I know how very hard it is to practice being spiritual when nothing seems to be happening and nothing seems to ease the horrible anguish of being alone in the universe. So I go back to listening and to feeling their pain in me.

And then there are others against whom life has conspired and in their suffering they are inspired to visions of divinity. I will tell you of two. One is a believer, the other an agnostic. First we meet the believer.

Olive Maclear was 90 when last I saw her. In her life she had lost her husband and one child. The use of her legs, her hearing, and her eyesight were virtually gone. Yet her faith, her trust in God was fully intact and often when I needed an epiphany I would go to visit Olive and she would tell me of the wonderful workings of God.

When Olive was a young 87 she was the secretary of the Administrative Board. At one board meeting I read letters from the chair of the Trustees, the Church Treasurer, the Sunday School Superintendent and several other prominent leaders of the congregation. They resigned their membership in mass and ertr moving to other congregations because of my pastoral leadership. The other members of the board were shocked as I read or summarized one resignation and withdrawal after another. In all total about 20% of the congregation left. When I stopped there was deep silence. I didn't know what to say or to do. I was devastated.

Finally Olive, smiling and looking around the room said, "Well that's done, what's next." She knew from her life that to be alive is tragic, that life has crosses, but that after three days we would go on to the resurrection. She knew that now we would get on with our lives and do whatever it was we needed.

Olive accepted adversity as the way of life and when one episode was ended, she in confidence of God's mercy, was ready to move to the next episode. Did she grieve and pain as we do? Indeed she did. But she somehow also managed to keep this in balance with those parts of life for which she was grateful. She loved her two surviving daughters, their husbands and her grandchildren and took joy in their lives. She loved her UMW circle, her church family, her memories of picnics, baptisms, marriages, shared anguish and wonderful compassion.

Olive is now deceased yet her faith lives in me and when I wonder where is God I think of Olive and I look for where in the ordinary parts of my life God has been good to me.

Now we meet the agnostic who in spite of his skepticism sees glimpses of God. Stephen Hawking has for years been dying. He has what we lay people call Lou Gehrig’s disease. At first it was just a weakness in his hands and arms, an unusual tiring in walking. But as the disease progressed he became confined to a wheelchair. Now he cannot talk without the aid of a computer which he instructs by the movement of his tongue, his last moving part. Slowly his body continues to shut down. In order to stay alive he needs the assistance of oxygen and heart stimulants. Someday everything, all the parts, will finally just stop.

But for now he is still alive. He has an occasional interview, he works for weeks on recorded lectures and he writes books all with his tongue guided computer. With only this much of himself left in the world Stephen Hawking wonders about physics and about God.

In his book A Brief History of Time, Dr. Hawking writes:

We find ourselves in a bewildering world. We want to make sense of what we see around us and to ask: What is the nature of the universe? What is our place in it and where did it and we come from? Why it is the way it is?

 

These are the questions of epiphany and indeed Hawking goes on in his book to discuss whether or not there is a God and how would we know God in the universe concluding:

...if we do discover a complete theory (of the universe), it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason - for then we would know the mind of God.

 

Stephen Hawking will have his epiphany in a Grand Unified Theory of the universe, in a single mathematical equation that describes the existence of time, space and various forces that hold it all together. I agree with Hawking that the search for mathematical unity and harmony, whether it be by Einstein or Bach, is the search for the mind of God.

But for me there is still another search for perhaps a greater epiphany. Hawking knows this search as well for he describes it in the acknowledgments to his book. He writes:

Apart from being unlucky enough to get ALS or motor neuron disease, I have been fortunate in almost every other respect. The help and support I received from my wife, Jane, and my children, Robert, Lucy, and Timmy, have made it possible for me to lead a fairly normal life and to have a successful career. I was again fortunate in that I chose theoretical physics, because that is all in the mind. So my disability has not been a serious handicap.

 

In the midst of all that life has brought him, Stephen Hawking takes a moment to both acknowledge the misery of his life and to celebrate with gratitude the grace of his life. To see God with him.

To see an epiphany is to see the sacred in the ordinary. To know a manifestation of the divine is to see a newborn child and to marvel that in the midst of a dying planet, against the odds of universal entropy, against the wickedness and suffering of life, a baby is born and God again affirms the goodness of creation.

I don’t know why some folks know this and others don’t. I don’t know why I know this one day and not the next. Some days I smell God in the air, feel God in the sun, hear God in the voices on the phone, taste God in the water, touch God in the hand of my beloved. On other days I am dead to God and God seems dead to me. I don't know why and I don't know how to control epiphanies. If I did I would give them to you for free because I know your pain and I can barely endure it.

I grieve for my friends who in this today anguish over their lost God. I celebrate with my friends who in today have seen love and who celebrate the presence of God in life. And I daily pray for all of you, that you might be having an epiphany. Amen and Shalom.