The twelfth and final day of Christmas is January 5 every year. The Church spends 12 straight days celebrating and basking in the joy of our Lord’s nativity. Christmas is widely understood, its purpose, its setting, its reason: Jesus’ birth. The season that follows, Epiphany, in my experience, is less understood. 

The Church Year unfolds in a marvelous way. In Advent, we are promised a gift; at Christmas, this gift is given; and throughout the season of Epiphany, this gift is opened. The word "epiphany" comes from the Greek word meaning "to be revealed or made manifest"—this is one of the two overarching themes of Epiphany. This theme of revelation takes place in two ways: Jesus is revealed as God, and He is revealed even for us Gentiles.  

The Feast of the Epiphany is celebrated on January 6, when Jesus is revealed to the magi. It is worth noting that the lectionary sets before us the first of the Epiphany revelations. The Lord doesn’t manifest Himself to the high priest, nor the Pharisees, nor any of the Jewish religious leaders, but to Gentile magi. Epiphany is sometimes called “Christmas for the Gentiles.”  Salvation isn’t tethered to lineage or bloodline or ancestry. Christ has come, not just for Israel, but even us Gentiles have been grafted into His vine. This gift that was promised in Advent, given at Christmas, is revealed to be a gift for the world.  

This revelation continues all throughout the Epiphany season. The Sunday after we hear of the magi, we celebrate the Baptism of Our Lord, where he is revealed as the Son of God. “…and behold, a voice from heaven said, 'This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.’” (Matthew 3:17). In the Gospel readings for the rest of the season, we hear of Jesus’ miracles and teachings, revealing Him as God in the flesh.  

The last Sunday in the Epiphany season culminates in the Transfiguration of Our Lord. “And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light. And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him” (Matthew 17:2-3). Placing the Transfiguration at the end of the Epiphany season is a 19th-century Lutheran liturgical development. Before the mid-1800s, most Christians, including Lutherans, celebrated the Transfiguration on August 6th; but, beginning in the early 1800s, several Lutheran territories in Germany—followed later by Scandinavian churches—shifted the Transfiguration to the last Sunday after Epiphany. If one of the themes of Epiphany is revealing Jesus as God in the flesh, it makes liturgical sense to end at the Mount of Transfiguration.  Before Peter, James, and John, the veil is partially removed, and the Lord’s divine glory is made manifest. Though it had appeared in other hymnals, this change was adopted and standardized in the LCMS in the Evangelical Lutheran Hymn Book, published in 1912. It remains a Lutheran mark on the liturgy to this day and a practice that later spread among other Protestant church bodies.  

The second theme of the Epiphany Season is light. Christ, the Light of the world, has come to penetrate the darkness of this world and the dark depths of our hearts. The Old Testament reading for the Epiphany of Our Lord is Isaiah 60:1-6, “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you. And nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.” We, who sit in the darkness of our own sin, are illuminated by the Light of Christ. The Old Adam is drowned in the waters of baptism, and the New man emerges and arises to live before God in righteousness and purity. “For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness” (1 Thessalonians 5:5).

In keeping with this theme of light, the Lutheran hymn writer Philipp Nicolai wrote what would become known as the “Queen of the Lutheran Chorales,” O Morning Star, How Fair and Bright (LSB 495), the hymn of the day for the Epiphany of Our Lord. (The “King of the Lutheran Chorales” was also written by Nicolai: Wake, Awake, For Night is Flying.) In O Morning Star, How Fair and Bright, Nicolai has us sing of God’s grace alight and glowing, imploring the Holy Bridegroom to shine in our hearts with undying flame. If you are not familiar with this excellent hymn, I commend it to you.  

The season of Epiphany, like the rest of the liturgical year, is a season to proclaim Christ and who He is and what He has done. Because the focus of Epiphany is revealing Christ, it is also a season for special emphasis in mission work, that we would proclaim Christ in our daily lives and conversation, within our vocations, and invite others to church to hear the preaching of His Word.  

Jesus is the incarnate God, come to enlighten the darkness of our hearts by His gracious visitation; come to enter into His glory on the cross for the sins of the world. He comes for the nations, He comes for you according to His grace and mercy. A blessed Epiphanytide to you all.