Epiphany (II)
Vol. 57 No. 8 The Second Sunday after Epiphany January 18, 2026
By the word Epiphany we refer both to a particular day (January 6th) and to the season that follows it. (This season varies in length – from two to six Sundays – depending on Easter’s falling early or late.) But what is Epiphany? “We now celebrate the Epiphany of our Lord”, writes Robert Crouse, “his manifestation, his showing forth, or shining forth; the appearing of the new Sun of Righteousness, the light that shines in the darkness, the light which all this world’s darkness can never overcome. ‘For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’ (2 Corinthians 4:6). That is the theme of the Epiphany: the shining forth of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, who is ‘the power of God and the wisdom of God’ (1 Corinthians 1:24).”
Crouse also says “Epiphany is not about the showing forth of God in his works, but the showing forth of God in himself: the showing forth of God in Christ, who is ‘very God from very God’”. Christ, the Word made flesh, is himself the Epiphany of God’s grace and glory (John 1:14), and therefore the Church commemorates multiple moments of epiphany. Though we give priority to the Adoration of the Magi, “the Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles”, yet (in line with ancient tradition) the Prayer Book acknowledges two other events: the Baptism of Christ, where Christ’s divine Sonship was “manifested” (John 1:31) and in the Wedding of Cana, where Jesus did his first miracle, changing water into wine, “and manifested forth his glory” (John 2:11).
But, as Crouse says, “the divine life is manifested in Christ that we might be partakers of it. That is to say, there is an epiphany, a showing forth of the divine life in us. That is the continual theme of the Epistle lessons for the Sundays of this season”; each of which “are significantly related to the particular Sunday’s gospel”. Their pattern is this: “the Gospel lesson always reveals some aspect of the showing forth of God in Christ; the corresponding Epistle lesson always reveals how that showing forth of God has also a showing forth in our life as Christians.”
On the first Sunday after Epiphany, the Gospel (Luke 2:41-52) speaks of Christ among the Doctors (teachers) of the Law in the Temple, where he amazed them with his understanding and answers; how he manifested self-consciousness as Son of God – “wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?”; how his parents “understood not his saying”; how he “grew in wisdom and stature”. It’s all about the manifestation of the wisdom of God. The Epistle (Romans 12:1-5) appeals for the showing forth of that same wisdom in the life of the Church: “be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God”.
On the second Sunday after Epiphany, it is the manifestation of the power of God that is proclaimed in the gospel (John 2:1-11, dislocated in the 1928 Prayer Book but restored to its ancient place in our practice). At the wedding in Cana, Jesus takes on the responsibility of the bridegroom for the wedding feast, by changing water into wine. He is thus manifest as the Bridegroom come to claim the Church his Bride, and to transform our nature by the power of his Spirit. That same power of the Spirit is manifested in his Body in the Church, in its endowment with gifts for service (Romans 12:6-16), and above all in the gift of charity. “Let love be without dissimulation”.
Divine wisdom, divine power are manifested to us in Christ – and on the third Sunday, divine goodness. (The first Article of Religion confesses God is “infinite in power, wisdom, and goodness”). The goodness of God is not a sterile moral perfection: it is a generosity that overflows in all its works. And where it overflows, as the gospel lesson illustrates (Matthew 8:1-13) it is not overcome of evil, but overcomes evil with good. Jesus is not defiled by contact with the leper; rather the leper is cleansed and restored by his touch. The goodness which restores the diseased member to communion with God’s people overflows the boundaries of Israel, to the healing even of the Gentile – not by proximity of physical contact, but by the authority of Christ’s word – a premonition of the word that will be carried to the ends of the world, and of those who come from all its corners to the banquet of the kingdom. The Epistle lesson (Romans 12:16-21) calls for the same divine goodness to manifested in the Church, in its response to evil will and persecution: “be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good”.
The order of the divine attributes manifested on these Sundays is not accidental: wisdom first, then power, goodness third. First we must “perceive and know what things we ought to do” (wisdom), and only then receive grace and power to do them. Only then are we able to do what is good. Thus our transformation begins in the renewal of the mind in the wisdom of God, the revelation of God’s glory in the Incarnate Son. “Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee” (Isaiah 60:1).