Today is Epiphany. For those of us who’ve been raised in a high-church tradition, we know and understand what this holiday means to us as Christians. Some celebrate this holiday with great joy. Some have lost the joy in the repetition of a seemingly outdated tradition. Some of us have no idea what Epiphany means as our church does not celebrate or acknowledge this religious holiday.

Today I hope that we all have an epiphany about Epiphany! One quick note before we start: the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas” is about the 12 days that follow Christmas, starting on December 26th and ending on January 6th, Epiphany.

I’ll be giving you several options today referring you to a variety of websites that give the history and meaning of Epiphany as well as creative applications to today’s churches. So feel free to visit the site that seems most applicable to your church or ministry.

• Reclaiming Epiphany from Reformed Church in America (the Reformed Church places a high value on creativity and the arts). This article also has great ideas for children, as well as “children of all ages”.
• Epiphany in Missional Churches from the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship. Focuses on Epiphany celebrations around the world with a missional focus.
• The More Days the Merrier: Celebrating the 12 Days of Christmas from the Catholic Church. Ideas for celebrating each day with historical background on various feasts.
• Two Medieval Hymns for Epiphany from the New Liturgical Movement about two Catholic hymns used for Epiphany.
• And if you’re a Pinterest kind of person check out Three Kings Day which doesn’t tell you much about the reason we should celebrate but has lots of great ideas if you’ve been inspired to celebrate!

The celebration of Epiphany is based on the passage from Matthew 2, when the Wise Men brought their gifts to the baby Jesus: Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the reign of King Herod. About that time some wise men from eastern lands arrived in Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw his star as it rose, and we have come to worship him.” . . . And the star they had seen in the east guided them to Bethlehem. It went ahead of them and stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were filled with joy! They entered the house and saw the child with his mother, Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasure chests and gave him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Take some time to give this updated version of We Three Kings a listen! May we all be filled with joy as we come to worship and bow down before him! May we open the treasures stored within and give them to our precious Savior and King!

Blessings of ARTistry, CREATivity & BEaUty, Jody

P.S. Missed previous posts? Click here.

______________________

What is Create-A-Day? Just as One-A-Day® Vitamins help restore the nutrients we deplete in our bodies, so too do we need to refill, replenish and renew our creative souls. In 2015, watch for daily* posts to undergird your ministry; lead you to resources to nurture the creative spirit within; and draw you more deeply into your worship of Jesus Christ. My goal is to provide you, the creative Christian, with over 250* resources to help you develop your ARTistry, CREATivity & capacity for BEaUty. Books, worship arts ministries, video series, websites, conferences—all geared towards artists, creatives, worshipers and people serving in worship and creative arts ministries. So, visit my blog every day* to see what creative resource I’ve hunted down for you. You can stay connected by following me on Twitter or Facebook. Or better yet, sign up to receive email updates by clicking the button to the left. We’ll watch the resources pile up as the year unfolds!

* I am a proponent of family time and Sabbath rest so don’t look for posts on weekends or Holidays.

Jody Thomae is the author of God’s Creative Gift—Unleashing the Artist in You, a devotional book with Bible studies to nurture the creative spirit within and to serve as a resource for creative Christians, artists, musicians and worshippers. She has been involved in worship arts ministry since 1997, coordinating artistic involvement in church services and regional worship events through dance, drama, poetry and fine arts and has had the opportunity to perform, teach, choreograph, preach, coordinate and lead workshops in the area of creativity, spirituality and embodied prayer. She has also recently released a devotional CD, Song of the Beloved.

Her passion is for the revelation of God to be made more real through the prophetic use of the arts in church and formational ministry. It is her desire to portray the message of Christ’s desperate and unfailing love for His people to help sustain the hearts of the broken and weary. Life scriptures include Psalm 27; Isaiah 50:4-7; and Zephaniah 3:14-17.