A Rude Epiphany

 

It might have been almost poetic if it weren't so horrifying. An attack on the seat of our government took place on the Feast of the Epiphany, the day we remember sages from a distant land journeying to see a little kid who would one day be known as the Prince of Peace. When the Magi told King Herod about it all, though, the paranoid ruler saw the child as a prince of a very different sort, as a threat to himself. The notion that Jesus intended to overthrow the Roman Empire and with it Herod's tetrarchy was fake news that led to violence. The tyrant imagined a danger, believed his own imagination, and sent his men on a rampage that ended in deaths.

Herod was not in danger, and his hangers-on were not being oppressed (at least not by the child and his family). They feared losing power, and that fear is also what motivated the rioters of January 6, 2021. They were largely folks who felt that letting other folks have more rights would diminish their own hegemony, though they wouldn't put it that way. They'd say they were protecting their country--by which they mean a country where everything is the way they like it. They also believed in a lot of lies about what their political opponents intended, creating huge paper tigers to justify their rage and fear. 

The word epiphany is about truth being revealed, about moments of clarity where the glory of God is shown in a child's face. This year on Epiphany, we all had a moment of clarity, and the truth that was revealed on Capitol Hill was not a glorious one. I'm sure the people who engaged in this assault think of themselves as epic heroes. They are not. The sights of a Confederate battle flag being carried through the Capitol, of ruffians rifling through leaders' desks, of broken windows and trampled bodies and bare-chested white anger are not beautiful. The events of that day revealed that there is an ugly reality just below the well-mannered surface of this land, and it needs only a few words from a demagogue to bubble up and show its vileness.