A major news outlet has asked its readers to respond to a survey about how Americans should best remember the anniversary of January 6. I am sure there will be many thoughtful and worthwhile suggestions. My own preference would be to mark it as a day of recommitment to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, so that this day of national humiliation and shame might remain firmly in the past rather than endlessly reenacted.
Perhaps in another century or two it will be remembered in ways similar to how the English recall Guy Fawkes Day—with ritualized distance and historical irony. But that time has not yet come.
There is, however, another way to remember January 6 that is both older and more important—and it must not be made subordinate to the insurrection of five years ago. January 6 is the Christian Feast of the Epiphany, the day that closes the Christmas season. It commemorates the visit of the Magi, who came to the infant Jesus to do him homage and offer gifts, recognizing him as the rightful king of the Jews.
These foreigners from a distant land had read the signs and concluded that this newborn child would be the source of new life and new hope for all people, everywhere, in every time. They did not see that hope in its fullness, but what they perceived was enough to compel them to undertake a long and arduous journey.
Christians understand that dynamic well. We experience that new life and new hope only in part—not yet fully. The fullness lies ahead, to be revealed at another time and in a greater light. But even now it represents a new way of life, one that invites us to grow more fully into all that we are called to be.
It stands in stark contrast to a worldview recently articulated by Stephen Miller, one of the president’s top aides and an architect of the administration’s policies. He argued that we must be “realistic” and accept that the world is ruled by power and force—by those who possess sufficient strength to violently compel others to submit. It is a vision of reality in which greed, domination, and the lust for power are treated as the fundamental truths of human existence.
That worldview is not merely the opposite of God’s will for humanity and creation as revealed through the prophets and made manifest in Jesus Christ. It is an open rebellion against it. Indeed, it is a declaration that there is no God—only the temporary authority of men who seize power and rule by force. In such a scheme, there is no genuine hope for new life, freely and fully shared.
Christians are commanded to reject this vision of reality. We are called instead to follow the way of Christ—a way that affirms the dignity of every human being, seeks healing rather than domination, and recognizes that the welfare of any one nation is inseparable from the welfare of all nations. One need not be a Christian to grasp this truth; it is recognized across faith traditions and philosophies throughout the world.
History itself makes the lesson plain. Every nation and empire built on conquest, coercion, and the lust for power has ultimately failed. There may be moments of apparent triumph, but they never last. Look around the globe today. No nation is without its struggles, but those societies in which personal freedom is balanced by a commitment to the common good—where citizens have reason to expect a stable and humane future—are markedly different from those crippled by corruption and despotism. The latter cannot lift themselves from the mire into which they have sunk.
As Christians, our calling is clear. We are to bear something of the Kingdom of God wherever we go and with whomever we encounter, regardless of circumstances. Our hope does not rest in the powers and principalities of this world, but in God—the maker and sustainer of all that is seen and unseen—who has revealed to us, and to all people, a better way of life.. We invite those of other faith traditions and those with none to join us reject Miller and those like him and walk in the better way.