The Epiphany, 2025: The Night When Animals Speak
Ven. Jonathan Crane
The Epiphany is chock full of ecological, cosmic, spiritual, and physical significance. The star is the central image, but there are also some delightful myths that land in this season of revelation, darkness, journey, and light. Southern Italy holds a tradition that, on the Epiphany, the animals can speak and share news of their treatment through the year. It is a small testament to a deeper sense that the news of Jesus impacts all shapes and dimensions of our world.
Commentary
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V1 – The writer draws heavily on light and dark imagery and, in the Northern Hemisphere, the RCL places this reading beautifully at our tender point of darkness. We experience ecologically what the writer is expressing spiritually and symbolically. The “Glory of the Lord” rises like the sun grows in January.
V2 – likewise, “thick darkness” always catches me. We know it in our bones. Thick darkness is weighty. The world is blanketed in darkness like a heavy fur, and symbolically Isaiah reflects on the state of a world and society also weighted down. Even yet, the brightness grows.
V3 – This is not a light only for a few. This is a light that, though growing in one place, is for the many. Whole nations will come to see more clearly in this light, and leaders will be drawn in.
V4 – Similar to a major theme in Advent, v4 shakes the reader, in spite of the lingering darkness, to raise their eyes and look about. Can we see what is happening? The human family is being drawn together: sons and daughters carried in. All of us drawn to this light.
V5,6 – And, once we are all together, only then will we see and be able to share. As the Glory of the Creator is revealed, all things will come together: the nations, the sons and daughters, the abundance of the seas, and treasures of the nations, and, receiving special notice, a thousand virile camels from Midian and Ephah. And, with connection to our NT readings, Isaiah’s writer foreshadows or reflects from his current experience the travelers from Sheba bringing certain gifts.
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I read this Psalm as an example of a traditional person using local and salient imagery to express a theological message. It is a prayer for the king and scholars suggest it may well have been written for Solomon and used at subsequent coronations in Hebrew history.
V3 - The people must have been familiar with working in the mountains (v3). I was able to visit such a place this summer – the traditional agriculture happened in terraces up a steep mountain face. The mountains literally brought prosperity to the people. Hebrew = “Shalom.”
V5 – I love the language here that links to remarkably similar wording in our Treaty 6 establishment language: “As long as the sun shines, the grass grows, and the river flows.” This does not mean that there is some distinct treaty link with this psalm, but that both its writer and the Indigenous peoples of the plains were deeply embedded in the Land. How many of us are embedded and relying on our local ecosystem today? I know a few trappers in north Alberta who still really do this, but most of us are deeply separated. We only go “into” nature,” or “go for a hike.” Outdoor pursuits are admirable, but we need to note in our exegesis that most of our modern audience has no certain reference to Land-connected living.
V6,7 – same as v5 except that mown grass triggers all kinds of modern experiences and feelings!
V10,11 – the textual impact of these verses is to say, “the whole (known) world will come to celebrate.” Or “to the ends of the earth.”
V12-14 – The king being celebrated in this psalm is not a tyrant. This leader cares for the voiceless and weakest and is their advocate.
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V5 – We don’t know Paul’s intentions here, but it is enjoyable to think that though “the mystery was not made known to human kind,” and needed holy apostles and prophets to make it so, he might be suggesting that the mystery was indeed known to non-humans for ever and ever. It is a helpful hermeneutic to consider humanity the last and the weakest to pick up the theme.
V8-9 – Paul hints at his own hermeneutic of humility, “I am the very least of all the saints,” and cites again a mystery hidden from humans from before all ages. The last line of v9 heightens the idea that Paul is indeed thinking of the non-human world here.
V10-12 – Paul opens an idea here that the church is not only a receiver of the mystery, but able to reflect that mystery, in a new way, back into unseen sacred space. Paul asserts that this was central to the holy work of Jesus the Christ. It is through Jesus that we have access to this deep mystery.
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V2 – “For we observed his star in the East.” There is so much here. While we modern (city) folk enjoy the stars once or twice a year while camping or when we make a point of going to a dark-light area, traditional peoples would interact with the stars daily. This is evidenced by the star-lore that comes from many cultures across the globe, and their use for navigation as in these verses. In cities we forget that the stars are the immediate counterpoint to the land at night. To exist in a non-electronic culture is to have the stars as a main reference point of life. I will not cover all the messianic star-theories here; however, we do want to celebrate the absolute authority given to this non-human element of the story and to appreciate how deeply embedded the stars were for the magi. Are there any non-human voices that we listen to so closely in our day? What voice of God are we missing in an age of light-pollution?
V11 – the medicines of the land vary from place to place. God has chosen, in the wisdom of evolutionary grace to imbue some trees, plants, rocks, biomes, and elements with special gifts. It is striking that all three of these gifts given by the magi remain valued even today. Gold obviously, but frankincense and myrrh remain well used in the incense industry. A colleague who has spent much time in the Middle East described entering a house and frankincense being used as an act of hospitality to bless her as she entered – placed on the floor and the smoke billowing up around her. On the Plains, in local Cree tradition, we use tobacco as a particular gift to elders when we are asking for their help. We honour medicines of the land by placing tobacco before we harvest them. There are also some beautiful gift-giving ceremonies that ensure that everyone has what they need to get through the winter (round dance). What sacred medicines are valued in your land? What is the gift-giving culture of your area? What land-gifts would you bring today?
Teaching and Preaching Ideas
Ephesians 3:10 invites reflection on the church’s role in revealing the glory of God to the cosmic unseen realms. This is not a ministry of first revelation, but a ministry of witness and clarity. The church has a vocation to point out and to celebrate God’s goodness to all creation. God’s goodness has always been there but, Paul notes, the church is tasked with “making known” this rich wisdom in a new way. We can let our imagination grow here to consider how we witness Good News to visible and invisible alike. Protecting a mountain from unneeded coal excavation announces the intrinsic value of the ecology. Giving a river legal personhood reveals the sentient nature of the land. Celebrating new particle understandings announces the rich wisdom of the Creator.
The placement of Matthew’s coming of the Magi reading on Epiphany underscores the revelation of God’s good news in Jesus to the Gentiles. We should not miss the participation of the cosmos in this narrative. It is through a cosmic event that God makes this connection. From a place of scarcity, land and sky can be fought over and bring disconnection; however, we might celebrate that a solar eclipse brings the world together in common experience, and a storm forces selfish neighbours to rely on one another for survival. We live on common land and under a common sky. There is one moon of Earth and one Sun around which our solar system turns. The Epiphany Star reveals to us the common human story into which the Christ has become enfleshed.
Isaiah 60:7 helps us catch a theme in the first six verses: “the rams of Nebaioth shall minister to you;” In the revelation of God’s glory, the writer highlights how the animals and land share in this revelatory work. Camels, rams (7), seas, coastlands (v9), and trees (v13) all share in adding splendor to the Epiphany. This could be a good place to connect the South Italian myth about the animals gaining speech. Yes, the myth is primarily didactic – “care for your animals lest they disparage of you on the Epiphany,” but it invites nevertheless the voices of non-humans in the revelations of God. How would your family dog or budgie speak of your Christian witness? How would they give testament to the Good News back to you? Most of us do not need words to understand this. Many people I know understand their pet’s good news to them innately. St. Francis gets full points on this one too. But let’s expand even further to the whole witness of creation – both giving and receiving the news of Jesus. What lichens on stones celebrated the journey of Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem? What sheep and goats were converted by the angels’ presence? What elk bellowed in the foothills of the Rockies? “Lift up your eyes and look around, they all gather together.”
The New Interpreter’s Bible commentary notes the disparity between the messianic assertions of Psalm 72 and the actual behaviour of the kings of Israel and Judah. There is a similar disparity between our identities as “climate warriors” and “good ecological people,” our real attempts to care for each other (human and beyond). Psalm 72 suggests that it is still not worth giving up the work but pressing onward into a just eschaton: keep the vision in the forefront even if we fail (often) to achieve it. I live adjacent to a set of oil refineries on the edge of our city. While my work to shift our social system away from limited energy sources is objectively minimal, I remain motivated by the idea that one day the great-great grandchildren of my generation might be biking and playing in the green trees of those old refinery lands. Is there an almost eschatological vision that motivates you? Is there one that your church might be able to grab a hold of? Maybe even some new coronation psalms will be written of “what a day it will be.”
As we reflect on the ecological realities in these readings, we should not overlook nor diminish the threat of Herod. On account of his greed and fear, he threatens to kill the tender growth of God’s work among us. He is unable to crush Jesus, but the threat is very real and meted out against so many other infants in days to come. We stare bald-faced at the unjust impact of ecological misuse on the poor and under-privileged. While middle- and upper-class folk are inconvenienced by climate change, impoverished nations, farmers, and peoples lose their lives. As we overlook land destruction, whole species are wiped out, migration patterns shifted, and groundwater compromised. Yes, the messiah is born, and the promise of a new world is secure, but we experience that hope from within the grief of a highly dysfunctional ecological system. Beautifully the Magi, the wise ones, expertly navigate the threat of Herod by their persistence, their careful listening to the Spirit, and their commitment to being in joy at the manger despite the imposing backdrop of greed. Their shrewdness and delight overcome! Their gratitude and amazement at the gift of God in all things and in the non-human world negotiate the tyrant. May we share in their faithfulness if even to one small wildflower, one narrow stream, one patch of green. Every small thing manifests the glory of God to the nations.
Sources and Resources
Italian Epiphany legend and kid’s book: https://pullupachair.org/2017/01/06/epiphanys-eve-the-midnight-whispers/
The New Interpreters Bible Commentary set, Vol. IV, VI, VIII, & XI, Abingdon Press
Tom Wright, Matthew for Everyone and Paul for Everyone, SPCK & Westminster John Knox Press
Contributor Bio
Jonathan Crane is the son of a biologist, a small church pastor, beekeeper, chickenkeeper, hunter, and veggie co-gardener in Edmonton, AB. He is part of a 1000-year tree project with Dustin Bajer and started a long-term ‘Rewild the Church’ project at St. Augustine’s. He is drawn to the idea that many (most?) of the issues we are currently facing in church and world stem from a lack of familial gratitude-connection to the land. He believes the church can be a distinct leader in the work of reconnection and healing.
