Open doors to Epiphany are all around

We are in the season of Epiphany. In January many Christians around the world celebrate this feast holiday, a celebration older and more holy than Christmas.

This is a season and a celebration of discovery and understanding. It commemorates three entirely different events: Jesus’ baptism as an adult by John the Baptist, the coming of the three Magi, or “kings,” shortly after Jesus’ birth, and Jesus’ water to wine miracle at Cana. Depending on whom you ask, these three events relate to one another in different ways, and one may or may not be in some way more important or illuminating than the others.

For Unitarian Universalists, these events typify the “direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder … which moves us to renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces that create and uphold life.” In the season of Epiphany, as the light returns, and the world has celebrated birth and renewal afresh, we feel closest to the Divine and its manifestations on earth.

While Advent and yule bring us feelings of anticipation and longing, filling us with gratitude for gifts of divine grace that we have not earned but receive with joyful hearts, Epiphany asks us to take action. We move forward with the mission of our particular church, temple or faith calling in light of these sacred gifts. In the season of Epiphany the sacred has arrived and now moves through us, making us instruments of compassion, healing and peace.

One commonality among great religious prophets and leaders is their belief that we are all capable of becoming these instruments of the Divine.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama writes and speaks eloquently about the necessity for compassion in our lives. In one instance he tells of the importance of the gatekeeper in the life of any Buddhist temple or monastery. The gatekeeper may have many responsibilities – scholar, guide, watchman – but he or she is also the first point of contact for anyone coming from the outside world, the community’s first chance to respond with compassion, respect and a sense of “the divine in me greeting the divine in you.”

We are all the gatekeepers of our religious and secular communities. We are all responsible for representing these communities to the outside world, for giving a first impression of love and respect. We are each of us, as individuals and in communities, called to be living examples of the desire to end suffering in the world and allow for all people to have the luxury of direct experience of transcendence and renewal.

It can be a luxury.

Right there in your congregation are people suffering from job layoffs and failed marriages, children threatening to run away, and mental illness threatening to overwhelm. There is the woman whose father just died, the couple who are struggling to feed their children and still heat their home this winter, the couple who want a baby and can’t have one. There’s the man – he sits right next to you – who is silently suffering from depression. There’s the woman who just found out she has breast cancer; the man who is just so lonely and sure that he is the only one who feels that way. Throughout the year, but especially in this season of recognition and understanding, each of us is called to witness this suffering with honesty and hope, to soften it with compassion and justice, and to bring healing to one another through both faith and deed.

Jesus of Nazareth is one of our prime role models in how to live out this sense of justice and right action in the world.

Jesus was a human being who was completely open to God, to Spirit, to the holy mystery that creates and renews life, and which we would all like to experience, whatever our religious beliefs, because that kind of experience renews and illuminates the personal and social good we do here on earth.

The stories of Jesus’ baptism and miracles illustrate that he knew this about himself. The story of the Magi coming from another culture and religion to give such significant gifts to a mere infant illustrates that others saw this miraculous openness to the Divine in him as well.

In the season of Epiphany, may we recognize this possibility within ourselves. We cannot create direct experience of that transcendent mystery that Jesus was so filled with. We cannot buy it or plan for its acquisition. But we can open ourselves and invite it in. We can recognize all that is best and most life giving in ourselves, and share it with others, those both dear to us and foreign. This mission of compassion will transform us and align our spirits with the forces that uphold life, and celebrate the coming of the light.

Jennifer Emrich-Shanks is an intern minister at the Unitarian Universalist Society of Bangor. She may be reached at bdnreligion@bangordailynews.net. Voices is a weekly commentary by five Maine columnists who explore issues affecting spirituality and religious life.