Written by The Precentor

The word epiphany comes from the Greek noun epiphaneia meaning manifes­tation or revelation, and we use it to focus attention on the manifestation of God to the world in the person of Jesus Christ.

In many ways the season of Epiphany is a continuation and extension of our Christmas celebration of the incarnation – of the Word made flesh. Throughout this season, which continues until the feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple on 2 February, we celebrate the revelation of Christ’s divine glory in a variety of ways, but principally through three well-known biblical stories – the coming of the Wise Men; the Baptism of Christ; and the first miracle at Cana in Galilee, when Jesus turned water into wine.

It is the first of these stories that is the most familiar, as the visit of the Wise Men to the Holy Family in Bethlehem is often told as part of the Christmas narra­tive: yet its familiarity can easily mask its power. ‘Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?’ (Matthew ii: 1) This question was originally posed by the Magi as they searched for the Holy Child, but it has become a motif for us during the season of Epiphany as we consider where we might find Christ in the world today. It was a question that also haunted the German pastor and theolo­gian Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–45) who was executed by the Nazis at the end of World War II for his leadership in the underground Confessional Church in Germany. Bonhoeffer wrote this paragraph in Faith that Transforms –

In Christ we are offered the possibility of partaking in the reality of God and in the reality of the world, but not in the one without the other. The reality of God discloses itself only by setting me en­tirely in the reality of the world, and when I encounter the reality of the world it is always sustained, accepted and reconciled in the reality of God. This is the inner meaning of the revelation of God in the person of Jesus Christ.

Everyone is welcome to join us this Sunday 5 January at 3.30pm for our Epiphany Carol Service, sung by Hereford Cathedral Voluntary Choir. There will also be two short and informal outdoor processional services, which will help to share the Epiphany story, at 1 or 2 pm in the Cathedral Close.