“Sing to the Lord a new song, his praise from the end of the earth.”
Isaiah 42:10
I’ve had the opportunity to spend time with two babies this past week. One of them a six-month-old human named Sully, the other a ten-week-old Labrador named Bryn. Both Sully and Bryn have given me a picture of the result of having an epiphany during this season of Epiphany. As I sat across the table from Sully during dinner at the Hackett’s home on New Year’s Day, and as I daily sit on our kitchen floor and play with our latest Guide Dogs for the Blind puppy Bryn, I am observing that they both display an almost uncanny ability to take in and celebrate all the new things that suddenly appear before them. Whether it is the flannel tug toy wiggling in front of her, the smile on a face that has come into his view, the sound of Grampsy’s Donald Duck imitation, or the high-pitched repetition of “puppy, puppy, puppy,” these varied stimuli have a similar effect on these babies. Sheer Joy. Joy at the discovery and opportunity that has miraculously crashed into their presence. An epiphany, an appearance, a sudden awareness of a gift.
Christmas is the story of God coming into view, suddenly appearing before us. It is the announcement of an arrival. It is a light that turns our head and a song that tickles our ears. It is the experience of the brightness and the weight of God’s glory. It is the opportunity for an epiphanic experience. A sudden awareness that something new has appeared in our field of vision or sung its song within our hearing. If we pick it up, if we take it in, we want to become a part of it; we want to revel in its light and join in its song.
To have an epiphany is to be captured by something that feels gloriously new. Yet what we have experienced is actually something that is quite old. Something that existed long before we did. Something in which we were made to dwell. Not something that we discover, but something that discovers us and invites us to abide in it. Once there we want to sing what feels like a new song to us. But what we are actually doing is joining in a song that was being sung long before our voices were ever added to the chorus of voices who have been eternally singing it.
The One who appears in the manger in Bethlehem is also the one who is “before all things” and the one “in whom all things hold together.” He is the inspiration for the new song that was also the first song, and this song that gives birth to all songs, never gets old. For when he comes into view, when we hear him pass, it always seems as if he is doing so for the first time.
David Rohrer
January 6, 2023