I’m tired of Epiphany and looking forward to Lent beginning. This mid-winter season, takes us from the post-Christmas let down, you know, the Flight into Egypt and the Slaughter of the Innocents, to camping on the mountain with its weird epiphanies. I’m ready to be headed someplace real, like Jerusalem, the Cross, and an Easter Sunrise. It’s in Lent that we do religion. We tell people to fast and give things up. We schedule extra services and do Lenten studies. What Epiphany really lacks is controversy and some theological dogmas like incarnation and atonement. We want more words.

Then Moses brings the people to Mount Sinai and God appears. Jesus climbs a mountain with three of his disciples, and in the night, he is transformed. These Epiphanies are the final exams of a season when we haven’t been paying attention. So much of what is church is packed away after Christmas. People slack off their attendance and complain about the winter. Yet there is something empty and anti-church about these epiphanies. They take place on mountains far from any sacred buildings or large assemblies of people. Jesus doesn’t bring his Torah. The disciples can’t find a plug to charge their Kindle tablets. Into this emptiness, a mystery occurs which neither Moses, nor the disciples have words to talk about. God is other. Our experience of God is not just personal, it is ineffable.