In all the festivities and clamor around the weeks leading up to December 25, it’s easy to forget that Christmas Day doesn’t really mark the end of the Christmas season. Instead, that honor goes to Epiphany Day, a feast day celebrated on January 6, an ancient Christian holiday that celebrates the revelation of the incarnation of Christ — Epiphany.
Understanding Epiphany
Epiphany finds its beginnings almost 2,000 years ago — the first record of its celebration comes from the year 200, when theologian Clement of Alexandria wrote of early Egyptian Christians celebrating the day of Jesus’s baptism on the “15th of the month Tybi,” or around January 6 in our modern-day calendar.
By 361, Epiphany had morphed into a feast day, as Roman historian Ammianus Marcellus records it as a day celebrating both Christ’s birth and baptism. Many scholars believe its date was chosen thanks to the way early Christians read the Bible — they would start in Matthew at the beginning of each year — as well as to ancient beliefs around the date of the conception, birth, and baptism of Christ.
Soon after, some early churches began to celebrate Christmas and Epiphany on different days, and this distinction was formalized throughout the fourth and fifth centuries. December 25 was designated as Christmas, January 6 as Epiphany, and the 12 days between — “the 12 days of Christmas” — as the Christmas season.
The Religious Significance of Epiphany Day
While Epiphany’s main focus has always been the revelation of Jesus as the son of God, eastern and western Christians focused on different parts of the Biblical story, even dating back to the feast day’s ancient beginnings.
Eastern Orthodox Christians highlight Jesus’ baptism and declaration as the son of God — the Theophony — in their celebrations, and see it as one of the two occasions (the other being the transfiguration of Christ) when all three persons of the Trinity showed themselves to humanity simultaneously.
Epiphany was such an important feast day for early Eastern Christians that some churches regularly celebrated Epiphany long before they ever celebrated Christmas. The church of Alexandria didn’t adopt the Festival of the Nativity (Christmas) until well into the fifth century, more than 300 years after they started celebrating the baptism of Christ.
Western Christians, however, focus more on the coming of the Magi and their subsequent worship upon understanding the deity of Christ: “On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him” (Matt 2:11).
Little attention was given to Christ’s baptism in Western Christian celebrations, even early on — Augustine of Hippo, when giving a series of six sermons on the Epiphany in the late fourth or early fifth century, speaks only of the visit and adoration of the Magi.
Global Traditions and Celebrations of Epiphany Day
The diversity in the observance of Epiphany goes beyond denomination and sect. It also comes with distinct regional flairs in its celebration.
Celebrating the Three Kings
Epiphany in much of Latin America is known as Día de Reyes — the Day of Kings or Three Kings Day. Día de Reyes focuses on the long journey of the Magi from Babylon to Jerusalem, and many towns and cities hold a parade that reenacts this journey. It often culminates in the Magi arriving at a live nativity and presenting the infant Jesus with gifts.
The Epiphany Blessing
Across the Atlantic, some European Christians celebrate Epiphany with an Epiphany blessing, marking doorways, in chalk, with three letters: CMB. These are believed to be the initials of the traditional names of the wise men: Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar. CMB also stands for the Latin phrase Christus mansionem benedicat, which means “may Christ bless this house.”
3 Things Epiphany Means for Christians
But Epiphany — however it may be celebrated — reminds us of three important truths: the revelation that Jesus is the son of God, the ways God reveals his truth to us, and how we are to respond to this revelation.
Jesus Is the Son of God
That different Christian traditions focus on different revelations of Christ as the son of God shouldn’t be seen as a meaningless distinction. Instead, it invites us to contemplate that the mysteries of Jesus’s deity can be understood best through both his infancy and baptism — the Epiphany and the Theophany.
God Reveals His Truth in Many Ways
Epiphany also shows us the beauty and wisdom in how God reveals. While God can use supernatural signs and wonders to reveal to us his truth, love, and majesty — like he does through the chorus of angels to lowly shepherds in Luke 2 — sometimes he reveals himself through the natural world around us.
Humanity has looked to stars for millenia, and God has used them twice to show his covenant. First in Genesis 15, when he promises Abraham that his offspring — God’s people — will be as numerous as the stars in the sky. And then again in Matthew 2, where a new star in the sky led the Magi to ask, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews?” This echoes the prophecy of Isaiah 49:6, which says, “I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”
The Magi also noticed this star due to their vocation — they were trained as astrologists and astronomists and spent much time studying the night sky. Epiphany reminds us that we are to look for the work of God in our everyday, ordinary lives.
How To Respond to the Revelation of Christ’s Divinity
Finally, observing Epiphany Day reminds us how we are to respond to Christ’s incarnation. The gift of God, made man, to rescue us from our sin and bring us into relationship with him should compel us to worship, just as the Magi did all those years ago.
The Epiphany reminds us that there’s more to the Christmas season than the gift of Christ. There’s also our response to this extraordinary gift, where we should present ourselves as “as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God — this is your true and proper worship,” as Romans 12:1 says, glorifying and serving our wonderful, gracious God because of his redemptive work in our hearts and in our world.
