Yes, that is right.  Epiphany, like Christmas, is a season in the life of the spirit, not just a day in the church year.  You might ask, what is it about you and this season vs. day idea?  Well, thank you for asking.

Celebrating or marking something as a season, instead of a single day on the calendar, gives us that most precious commodity — time.  If Christmas is just a day, then it becomes easy to let it be about carols and presents and one really fantastic service to mark the event.  But if it it is a season, I have a chance to think, to pray, to savor — to experience different parts of what a big idea, like the ideas we talk about during Christmas, could mean and how those ideas might change me and my living.  That’s why I’ve been all about the Christmas season for these past years.

I had not, however, thought about the Epiphany season in the same way.  I, like many who at least observe Epiphany, have welcomed the Magi (whoever they might have been), accepted their gifts, eaten their gateau de rois, and waved goodbye as they have headed home by another way.  That is, until this year.

This year, I began to think about the meaning of the season, beyond the cake and the arrival of the fancy figures in nativity scenes everywhere.  Bruce Epperly, in his book The Work of Christmas, ends his reflections with one on Epiphany:

The Feast of Epiphany proclaims God’s revelation in unexpected places and among unexpected people. The true light enlightens everyone—Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Jews, and agnostics—as well as followers of Jesus. We find this light everywhere (90).

Clearly, yes, Epiphany is about the coming of the light, and the coming of our ability to see that light, the light that we call “the light of the world.”  During this season, we will read together many stories where that light through Jesus is revealed to the world — the words of Simeon in the temple, the baptism by John, miracles in Cana and Galilee and confrontations with his hometown and neighbors (light is not always appreciated) — all these chances for us to see the light.  But I wondered, are we also walking a path by which Jesus himself saw the light in his own life?

We are not called simply to see the light.  We are called to be the carriers of this light.