• History of the Season of Epiphany at CRI Voice
• Definition of Epiphany at Dictionary.com

The Peaceable Kingdom by Edward Hicks (1780-1849)

God looked over everything he had made;
it was so good, so very good!
It was evening, it was morning—
Day Six.
Genesis 1:31 – The Message

The goodness of God’s creation has never changed. Despite the facts that we humans tend to make a mess of things and that nature can be unpredictable, creation is still good. And God loves his good creation – you, me, and even that guy down the street who never mows his lawn and has a broken down car in the back yard – your cute kitty cat, my pigeons, and even those creepy crawlies lurking under the rotting leaves in the forest. It’s all good and God loves it all. In fact, someday he will restore his good creation to a state of mutual love and harmony:

The wolf will romp with the lamb,
the leopard sleep with the kid.
Calf and lion will eat from the same trough,
and a little child will tend them.
Cow and bear will graze the same pasture,
their calves and cubs grow up together,
and the lion eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child will crawl over rattlesnake dens,
the toddler stick his hand down the hole of a serpent.
Neither animal nor human will hurt or kill
on my holy mountain.
The whole earth will be brimming with knowing God-Alive,
a living knowledge of God ocean-deep, ocean-wide.
Isaiah 11:6-9 – The Message

Until that day comes we can engage in practices that demonstrate love and harmony. We don’t have to participate in the violence and destruction that disrupts our world at every turn. We may not be able to let our children play with black widow spiders, but we can learn to treat all of creation in a compassionate manner.

What might living in harmony with and demonstrating love for God’s creation look like?

• Treating animals humanely and compassionately, including the animals we choose to use for food
• Being conscious of how our farming, gardening, and building choices impact the the water, air, and soil
• Recognizing that our shopping habits have economic repercussions for people and environments far beyond our local community
• Choosing less for ourselves so there can be more for others
• Opting to share our blessings now instead of hoarding them for an uncertain future

The Apostle Paul wrote that all of creation was waiting with us for the day of restoration:

The created world itself can hardly wait for what’s coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens.
All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.
Romans 8:19-25 – The Message

The hope in us should expand us and enable us to live with compassion. Hope is contagious – it spills out of us as the fruits of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control) bringing hope to all those we encounter. Just before listing these fruits of the Spirit, Paul wrote:

It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don’t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows. For everything we know about God’s Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That’s an act of true freedom. If you bite and ravage each other, watch out—in no time at all you will be annihilating each other, and where will your precious freedom be then?
Galatians 5:13-15 – The Message

Love goes hand-in-hand with compassion – compassion for others and for the whole of creation. We can’t claim to love if we do whatever we want to do to any part of creation. We violate God’s proclamation of the goodness of the results of his creative energy when we pretend that animals, plants, soil, air, and water are expendable objects in the pursuit of our selfish desires.

Although it is true that we can’t fix all that ails the world by our human efforts and in our human time, we can live in such a way that we do not to contribute to the ills, and perhaps we can even provide solace and compassion along the way.