Epiphany — The Hidden Kingdom Revealed
As I’ve spoken with many of you, it sounds like for many of us Advent and Christmas always succumb to the wild pace our culture moves at. Despite our best intentions, the season comes and goes and we lament that we did not get to sit in the power of what the season means. This is where the Church calendar gives us a gift. The last 12 days of Christmastide have been extended times to worship everything Advent and Christmas bring us. And today marks the shift from Christmastide into Epiphany. For many of us, Epiphany is a new idea. But I’ve been blessed to read through some of the Church Fathers (St. Gregory the Nazianzus, St. Augustine, St. Ephrem the Syrian, etc.) and see just how beautiful this celebration is. Here’s a little writing for those of you that it might bless.
Advent taught us to long.
Epiphany teaches us to see.
In Advent we cried out, Come, Lord Jesus.
In Epiphany we learn to say, There You are.
Epiphany is not just the story of wise men and a wandering star. It is the moment the hidden King steps into the open—when heaven pulls back the veil and says to the world: This is what God is like. This is who rules the world. This is where history is going.
Which means Epiphany is not a sentimental afterthought to Christmas.
It is a revelation. An unveiling. An apocalypse—in the biblical sense of the word.
The curtain is pulled back. Reality is named. The true King is revealed.
In a world trained to see power in dominance, success, and spectacle, Epiphany re-forms our imagination.
The Magi were trained to read the skies. They studied the movements of the heavens. They watched for signs. And when the true Light appeared, they did not cling to their old maps. They followed the star. They bowed to a Child. They let their imagination be re-shaped by a different kind of King.
This is what Epiphany does to us.
It retrains our sight.
It interrupts our assumptions.
It teaches us to look for glory in unexpected places—
for power wrapped in weakness,
for majesty hidden in humility,
for salvation arriving quietly, not violently.
Epiphany is the gospel declaring that the world is not held together by force, fear, or fate—but by a crucified and risen King whose light cannot be overcome.
And here’s the miracle: the Light does not only shine at us. It shines through us.
The star that once led the nations to Jesus now leads the nations through the Church.
The light that once hovered over Bethlehem now dwells in ordinary people learning to follow Him in ordinary places.
Which means Epiphany is not just something we celebrate.
It is something we become.
A people who see differently.
A people who live differently.
A people whose very presence whispers to the world:
The true King has been revealed.
The darkness is passing.
And the light is already shining.
This is Epiphany.
And this is the slow, beautiful work of a re-formed imagination.