Christmas and Epiphany

Christmas and Epiphany

Exploring the text

Each of the Gospel writers addresses the themes of Christmas (the birth of Jesus) and Epiphany (the revelation of who he was) differently. Mark omits them entirely. Matthew has Jesus’ birth followed by the adoration of the Magi, and Luke’s Gospel combines the themes into a single strand, so that the angels reveal who Jesus is to the shepherds at his birth. This revelation takes place at the feeding trough where Jesus was laid and reminds us of the unexpectedness of the God we worship. Luke’s Gospel calls us to recognize that no one could have expected that God would come to earth in this way. Nor indeed that he would have lived out his life and ministry quite in the way that he did. This theme of unexpectedness recurs in Luke again and again, not least in Luke 4, which is read on the third Sunday of Epiphany. There, as we shall see, the unexpectedness of Jesus’ message turned a receptive audience into an angry mob...