The Feast of the Epiphany of the Lord is not about three wise men, three magi or three kings. It is about who Jesus is and what he came to do.
            Epiphany means ‘manifestation’ or ‘revelation.’ We celebrate the Feast of the Manifestation, or Revelation, of Jesus to the world. Jesus is revealed to be the Savior of all peoples. God had promised God’s chosen people, the Jews, that they would one day receive a Messiah – one who would be the source of salvation for the people of Israel. How the Jews understood what that Messiah would do and the type of salvation the Messiah would offer was complicated, but the Jewish people lived with the hope of one day receiving a Messiah. Within the prophetic tradition of Judaism, the Jewish people were often challenged to accept that when the Messiah came, the Messiah would draw all nations to Israel. God willed the salvation of all peoples so that the salvation offered by the Messiah would not be limited to the Jews but would be available to all. In Jesus, God fulfilled God’s promise. God gave the Jewish people the Messiah, for which they longed, but Jesus would prove to be a Messiah very different from the Messiah that many of them desired and that most of them anticipated. And in Jesus, God’s offer of salvation was now available to all peoples not just the Jews.
            As Christians, we have come to recognize Jesus as our Messiah, the Anointed One of God, in whom we find our salvation – the way to the everlasting life that is God’s desire for us. We recognize that the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus are the source of salvation for all people and that the Church, the Body of Christ on earth, is essential for the unfolding of God’s plan for the salvation of all people. We do not presume, however, to place limits on whom God can save. We simply rejoice that in Jesus we have found the Messiah and we hope that the witness of our lives will draw others to place their faith in him. We are to incarnate Christ in our lives so that our lives become an Epiphany for others – a revelation of Christ to our world.