Epiphany. The Greek word for appearance. And what exactly is being celebrated by this? Well the daily devotion for today certainly tells us, but it can be taken further.
Our God is all about the appearing and the appearance. Now, in a 21st century western mindset that could be taken to mean that God is all about how things look, and that they better look good. The nonsense in that our western and materialistic mindset is quite disheartening. As I've said previously, our God is about taking the ugly and making it beautiful. God appears to all.
Where is it that God appears to all? The most desolate place on earth: Mount Calvary. It is there that God appeared and continues to appear to all. That saving act of grace on the cross, Christ's throne, is the most glorious of appearances. The sci-fi adventure books Left Behind by sci-fi biblical fans Tim Lahaye and Jerry Jenkins entitled the last book of their series The Glorious Appearing. Like many of their theological mindset, and many in general, Mr. Lahaye and Mr. Jenkins are looking for the dazzling, "stomp out" the bad guys, glitter and glamour of our God appearing. We have been fooled into thinking that God appears in the beautiful and stays there. The culture tells us Britney Spears was worthless because she put on a few pounds, and not because she went down the self destructive path. Well, Britney has slimmed down, is as beautiful as ever, yet is still surrounded by many of the same distractions that led her down that path to begin with. Her message has not changed, it has just become more vengeful. Yet society has deemed this a "comeback."
The joke of thinking God is about appearing in the glamorous is that God has never done that. God took the form of a human baby from a young woman and took the world by storm beginning in a stable and lying in a manger. Where's the beauty in that? Some king! The culture and many Christians like Lahaye and Jenkins would have us believe that God is for the upper echelons of society, when the reverse is really the case. The King took his throne on a wooden cross on a desolate mountain so raw, so ugly it was called "The place of the skull."
The culture may say that God, or anything of worth, makes its epiphany or appearance in the things of high glitz and worth. Scripture says otherwise. The first will be last, and the last will be first. The worthless will become worthy, the ugly will become beauty. That's the God of the Bible. Not the God of American culture or religious sci-fi adventures.
His glorious appearance was and is on the cross. Right in the midst of the desolate and the destitute. That's where God is.
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