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For an illustration of what we Christians celebrate on Epiphany, think of the movie\u00a0Freaky Friday<\/em>. Either one will do \u2014 the original with Jodie Foster and Barbara Harris or the remake with Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis. Neither is really a great movie, but they\u2019re both memorable and entertaining. The story is one we seem to like a lot, since we retell it with slight variations every couple of years in movie after movie.<\/p>\n In\u00a0Freaky Friday,<\/em>\u00a0a mother and daughter switch places \u2014 switch\u00a0bodies<\/em>, actually. How this happens isn\u2019t really the point. The story isn\u2019t about the dynamics of body-switching, it\u2019s about the empathy and understanding that come from inhabiting another person\u2019s life. That understanding is a kind of epiphany, but it doesn\u2019t come instantaneously. Barbara Harris\u2019 first thought is not \u201cAh, so now at last I understand my teenage daughter,\u201d but rather, \u201cGood grief, what am I doing here?\u201d<\/p>\n Gradually, though, that understanding is revealed. It takes time to unfold, just as the Epiphany we Christians celebrate around January 6 took time to fully reveal itself, not just in a single night but over the course of 33 years or so. The incomprehensible was made into something we could grasp, something like\u00a0us<\/em>\u00a0that we could understand.<\/p>\n That\u2019s what\u2019s going on in the Christmas story, in all those creches and mangers on the mantle. It\u2019s a response, a resolution, to the impasse at the end of the book of Job.<\/p>\n If you\u2019ve ever read Job, you\u2019re familiar with the frustrating ending of that story. Not the tacked-on happy ending spelled out by the Greek-chorus narrator in the epilogue, but the actual ending to the story\u2019s central argument.<\/p>\n \u201cLife seems pretty unfair and bewildering to us humans,\u201d Job says.<\/p>\n \u201cWell,\u201d God replies, \u201cyou\u2019re just going to have to trust me.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut you don\u2019t understand what it\u2019s like to be us,\u201d Job says. \u201cYou don\u2019t understand how all this looks from\u00a0our<\/em>\u00a0point of view.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, well, you don\u2019t understand how it looks from\u00a0my<\/em>\u00a0point of view, either,\u201d God says. \u201cOne<\/em>\u00a0of us loosed the cords of Orion and laid the foundation of the earth and the last time I checked, it wasn\u2019t you. So just trust me, OK? I\u2019ve got this.\u201d<\/p>\n And that\u2019s the end of the conversation. Nobody wins the argument and nobody loses. It just kind of stops. An impasse.<\/p>\n Epiphany breaks through that impasse. The mutual incomprehension gets resolved through incarnation. In the words of the Hooters, \u201cWhat if God was one of us?\u201d<\/p>\n God\u2019s point back in Job is well-taken. The creator of ostriches and sea monsters and the horsehead nebula is simply beyond us, beyond our ability to grasp or apprehend. But a person \u2014 a human being just like us \u2014\u00a0that<\/em>\u00a0we can understand and relate to and comprehend. Maybe we\u2019ll never be able to understand everything there is to know about God, but maybe we could be shown everything we\u00a0need<\/em>\u00a0to know.<\/p>\n But also \u2014 and here\u2019s a wonderful part of the story we too often forget \u2014 the epiphany that unfolds from this freaky incarnation works both ways. If the person and the life of Jesus Christ taught us humans everything we need to know about God, that life also taught God what it is like to be one of us.<\/p>\n Some Christians balk at this notion of God\u00a0learning<\/em>. An almighty and omniscient being, they say, doesn\u2019t need to\u00a0learn.<\/em>\u00a0But this is part of the story. The story tells us this happened too.<\/p>\n \u201cYour sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother\u2019s house,\u201d the messenger tells Job. \u201cAnd suddenly a great wind came across the desert, struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young people, and they are dead; I alone have escaped to tell you.\u201d<\/p>\n When Job learned that his children had died, he wept. But God did not weep.<\/p>\n Jesus wept.<\/p>\n That\u2019s famously the shortest verse in the Bible, but there\u2019s an awful lot packed into those two words. Jesus loved to visit his dear friends Mary and Martha in the house of the poor, where he\u2019d play with their kid brother, delighting him by doing something Jesus almost never did. As a rule, Jesus didn\u2019t give names to the characters in his stories. His parables told of \u201ca certain shepherd,\u201d or \u201ca Samaritan,\u201d or \u201ctwo brothers,\u201d but they didn\u2019t have names. Yet in one story, Jesus decided to give one character \u2014 the hero of the story \u2014 a name.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man,\u201d Jesus said, beginning another story for another huge crowd. Then he looked over at the kid brother with a twinkle in his eye, \u201cAnd at his gate lay a poor man\u00a0named Lazarus<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n How cool would\u00a0that<\/em>\u00a0be for a kid?<\/p>\n But then Lazarus got sick and then, like Job\u2019s children, Lazarus died. And when Jesus saw Lazarus\u2019 sisters weeping, \u201che was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.\u201d And then God Almighty \u2014 God who laid the foundation of the earth, who determined its measurements when the morning stars sang together, God who commands the morning and causes the dawn to know its place, God who bound the chains of the Pleiades and loosed the cords of Orion \u2014\u00a0wept<\/em>.<\/p>\n That\u2019s an epiphany. That\u2019s the Epiphany we celebrate today.<\/p>\n Anyway, a belated Happy New Year to one and all. May your year be filled with epiphanies large and small, and may all your Fridays be freaky.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Some Christians balk at this notion of God\u00a0learning. An almighty and omniscient being, they say, doesn\u2019t need to\u00a0learn.\u00a0But this is part of the story. The story tells us this happened too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[68],"class_list":["post-44362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-sunday"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/52\/2019\/01\/Freaky18.jpg\")
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