Five Magic Moments of Epiphany

Epiphany 2026 - Isaiah 60.1-6, Ephesians 3.1-12, Matthew 2.1-12



The Letter to the Ephesians bubbles with excitement as its author celebrates the fact that, in the words of Psalm 72, the falling-down of the Kings before the infant Christ, which represents all nations doing him service, indicates that the whole world has become eligible to share in the boundless riches of Christ, and to be made party to ‘the mystery hidden for ages in God’. All that was ever concealed is now made manifest: Lift up your eyes and look around, says the Prophet Isaiah: the glory of the Lord has risen upon you!



The Early Church identified five principal moments of Epiphany or Manifestation, though in the western Church things settled by the High Middle Ages into a simple pair of episodes: the birth of Jesus on 25 December, and the coming of the Magi on 6 January. Each of the five events has much to teach us, however, beginning with the Nativity. Before it became a firm fixture in East and West, there was much highfalutin’ debate concerning dates and times, and a haggling over solstices and equinoxes. Furthermore, the monk doing the calculations in the fifth century got himself in quite a muddle, so that we ended up with Christ being born in about 5 BC. However, nothing can detract from the sheer concrete event of the Incarnation, and its role as the absolute crux of Christmas. Indeed, as the Magi enter the Bethlehem house and fall in adoration before the Christ-child, they are not delighting in a bonny baby, but worshipping the Lord and God of all. They reach their journey’s end just as we will reach ours, and by following the same light. The word of God, no longer a restricted file, is now legible to all. And we had better be busy responding to it, yielding our power as they have yielded theirs.



There is a much-needed taming of the Wise Men and their questionable magic: in their low obeisance, their exotic craft is dwarfed by the baby who is also the creator of the universe; and while their gifts appear opulent, they can be nothing to him who is the source of all things. What can I give him, rich as he is …?



The Baptism of Christ, celebrated on the first Sunday after the Epiphany, is also a making-visible and -audible of the boundless riches of Christ. As Jesus joins his cousin John in the waters of the Jordan, and as the voice of the Father ricochets round the valley, making clear God’s delight in the Beloved Son through the corroboration of the swooping Spirit, the earthly ministry of Jesus begins, and wants to draw us in. As he crosses his own Red Sea to embark on an Exodus journey, we travel with him, through the habits, traditions and disciplines of our baptismal vocation, progressing – or at least intending to progress – from slavery to freedom, and from death to life. This is always the journey where the light of Jesus leads us.



The Wedding at Cana of Galilee is the fourth occasion on which the mystery and the glory of Christ are made manifest, in a simple sip of water made sublimely wine by the power of God at work in a context of human love symbolised by marriage. We see (as we do at the fifth sign, the Feeding of the Multitude) what can happen when the divine and the human are joined together in a single endeavour. It is another of those images which we should pray about and ponder – another illuminating flash-point in which we see our human character and calling writ large in the unmistakable hand of God. What we began at Christmas, we continue today as, with the Magi, we identify Christ as King and God, Saviour and Healer; and, falling low before him, enter afresh into his service, ready to stand and follow his light from the guiding of the star to the breaking dawn above the Holy Sepulchre. Lift up your eyes and look around: the glory of the Lord has risen upon you!