Merry Christmas! Or better yet, Happy Epiphany! Did you know there are millions of people all over the world celebrating the birth of Jesus today? Epiphany is a special feast day in the Christian Church that takes place every year on January 6th. It’s always twelve days after Christmas (hence the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas”). Epiphany officially ends the Christmas Season in the Church.
Epiphany is often celebrated in the Eastern Church as the day of the birth of Christ and in the Western Church as the day the wise men came to visit Jesus in Bethlehem. It is also often the day that we celebrate the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist in the Jordan River. It was during his baptism, that Jesus came up out of the water to hear God declare from the heavens, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11).
The day of Epiphany is a day to remember the love of God coming into the world in the form of a baby born in a manger. It’s a day to remember that Jesus truly is the Son of God. And it’s a day for us as Christians to remember our own baptisms and the claim that God has on each of our lives as His children. Plus, today is Casual Friday!
That gives us a lot of reasons to celebrate today! Happy Epiphany!
