Â鶹Éç

Growing up in France, the sixth of January was a significant date in everyone’s calendar, the day to look forward to once Christmas and presents were over. It was epiphany, the celebration of the three kings or wise men coming to see Jesus. My family wasn’t religious but we still made special cakes, king’s cakes, ‘galette des rois’, within which we hid a little figure of Jesus. It was one the great excitements of the year as a child to see which lucky family member would find Jesus in the pastry and spit him out triumphantly. Whoever found Jesus was crowned king for the day, with a shiny sparkly paper crown.

It was just a cake, just a little figure, which in history even used to be a broad bean, just a small celebration with family and friends. But in that simplicity, something precious was hidden. Togetherness, and a memory that for Christians God isn’t found primarily in places of wealth, influence or power but in the ordinariness of daily life. And that discovering the beauty and magic of ordinary things can turn any of us into kings, into the luckiest people on earth.

New Year is often a time for heroes and special people, as in the New Year’s honours list. But they can seem remote, their achievements, unattainable.
Epiphany turns this logic on its head and invites everyone to discover beauty and goodness around them, in things, in people, in actions of kindness and generosity. The word epiphany often means a moment of sudden revelation, as something previously hidden comes into sight.

The last couple of years have brought lots of rather unwelcome epiphanies: the realisation that despite our technological advances and all our national wealth, we are still fragile, limited, and at times, powerless before the forces of nature. The pandemic has reminded us that to be human is to be small and vulnerable in many ways. It may not be knowledge we like or want. But Epiphany reminds me that God himself chose not invulnerability or strength, but hid his glory within the fragility of humanity. Epiphany encourages human beings to discern the good, the valuable, the precious in the ordinary lives that they lead, within the fragility that makes them reach out for one another in solidarity and relationship and recognise the face of God among us. All we have to do is look, notice and choose to celebrate, even with simple, shiny paper crowns or an unexpected broad bean in pastry.

Show less