"There is something on the ice!" Halden said, his eyes peering across the lake. This phrase is a delightful call to binoculars in our house, something looked forward to and cherished the several times a week that it happens. Soon several pairs of binocular clad eyes were trained on the lake.
"Why it's the Fuzzy Tails," I said, "and today there are three of them."
"They're so cute," cooed Chelsea. "Look at them sliding into the open swimming hole in the newly formed winter ice."
Linda and I and our two children all gazed, enthralled at the river otter play. Their chocolate coloured, richly-furred bodies looked as slick and as luxurious as the Queen on a visit to Inuvik. Out of the blue, the largest otter stood up high on its hind legs and turned around to look about 200 yards across the lake. It immediately dropped to all fours and began to do the "otter hop" in that direction (river otters, Lutra canadensis, are one of the largest members of the weasel clan and hop like all species of that family). I scanned ahead with my binoculars to see what the attraction was. Sure enough, across the lake was another opening in the ice; a new hole just begging for otter play. Soon all three river otters were doing the otter hop rapidly towards the hole.
And then, like a troupe of Keystone Kops, the lead river otter stopped, stood high and erect only to be knocked like a bowling pin by the other two charging behind him. A free-for-all erupted followed by an untangling. After this they all stood on their hind legs to look first at the delicious hole across the lake and then cautiously all around for any signs of danger. The large river otter dropped on all fours and made about two more hops towards the new delectable hole. It stood again to look, first at the hole in the ice and then all around again for any hazard. Everyone else copied the leader's procedure. This cautious two-step advance continued for about a dozen feet and soon it deteriorated into more peering around than advancing. Finally the last otter, obviously the smallest and most cautious, turned and began to scamper back to the original swimming hole. Soon 'Caution' became the leader and the whole troop turned and hopped like mad in a retreat that ended with a corporate dive into the safety of the old familiar swimming hole.
They disappeared for a few minutes. I looked all around with my field glasses. I could see no sign of any danger from either the likes of Eagle, Coyote, human or any other such vultures. And then the otters reappeared from their hole and the whole procedure repeated itself, ending with 'Caution' leading the retreat again. It started a third time, but we had to leave. It was town day.
When we got back home six hours latter, the river otters were still at their original swimming hole and I could tell from the tracks in the fresh snow that they had not advanced any further towards the hole of "milk and honey" on the other side of the lake. Caution had won the day. I had venison hanging and meat cutting to do and so I spent the remainder of the day pondering steaks, caution and a Scripture that had been bugging me all week.
Caution often seems to win my day. I am more like the river otters than I care to admit. In my walk as a Christian, I am often presented by God with opportunities I can't seem to grasp, challenges I back away from, ministries that I run away from. I am no chicken, "just doing what I otter", just being human. Many times the call of faith seems to call me beyond where I can humanly go. And if any human had reason to feel like that, it was the octogenarian Joshua as he was looking at the fortified walls of Jericho (Joshua 5.13-15).
As the old man Joshua gazed at the walls, it must have seemed obvious to him that the next divinely ordained step in his life would be the capture of the walled fortress Jericho. But there was so much reason for caution. He had received no inspiring divine message of instruction like he had before the crossing of the Jordan River. His fellow spies forty years before had reported at Kadesh Barnea that, ".the cities are large, with walls up to the sky." (Dt.1.28). To make matters worse, despite Joshua's long military experience he had never led an attack on a fortified city that was prepared for a long siege like Jericho was. And there was the matter of weaponry. Israel's army had no siege weapons; no battering rams, or catapults, or moving towers with which to attack the high walls. Their only weapons were slings, arrows, and spears, all impotent toys against the walls of Jericho.
As I continued to slice deer steaks and ponder Joshua, I became convinced that as Joshua gazed at the walls of Jericho he must have been on the verge of "doing what he otter;" letting caution lead the way and retreating. And then something caught the corner of his eye. It was a soldier brandishing a sword. Joshua instinctively challenged the stranger, saying in effect, "Who goes there, friend or foe?"
The response must have been shocking and revealing. Something occurred in the brief encounter that convinced Joshua that this stranger was no mere soldier. He fell on his face saying, in effect, "Speak, for your servant is listening." The reply to Joshua was brief but urgent: "Remove your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy."
"Holy Moses, Joshua," I said as my own personal and sudden revelation nearly caused me to slice off my index finger along with a deer steak. "You just had an experience like Abraham had under the oak at Mamre, Jacob had at Peniel, Moses had at the burning bush. You just had an epiphany, a manifestation of God."
So what on earth is the purpose of an epiphany? I thought hard as I moved on from steaks to stew-meat. In the Bible an epiphany always seems to happen right about the time someone feels called of God to do what they can't or won't do. Usually the mitigating circumstance is the problem of being led by caution. God seems to know that when caution is going to lead one of His people backwards, the way forward is to go stand right before their eyes and say, I will lead you and I will never leave you. In Joshua's case, God stood right before him (and this is not an angel because angels will not allow themselves to be worshiped as in Rev.19.9-10) and said in effect, I am in command. This epiphany was a deeply significant experience for Joshua. He had anticipated a battle between two opposing armies, Israelite and Canaanite. He had thought this was to be his war and that he was to be the Commander in Chief. But then he was confronted by the Divine as commander and learned that the battle was God's. God had shown up not as an idle spectator of the conflict nor even an ally but completely in charge. And Joshua had discovered himself as God's servant, at most second in command. Joshua was lifted from "doing what he otter", struggling to find courage in the face of the impossible challenge that was before him, to following the divine force of God into the challenge. It changed everything!
About the time I finished with the stew-meat and progressed to deer-burger it stuck me that here is the purpose of an epiphany, to discover God as divine commander, and ourselves as God's servants. For us Christians, Epiphany is more than a date on the calendar or a season of the church year. It is the realization of everything that Joshua discovered whilst cautiously gazing at the impossible walls of Jericho. When the call of faith seems to call you and I beyond where we can humanly go, God stands before our very eyes in the Christ child, in an epiphany, and speaks to each of us. He speaks in Christ and says, "I am the Commander; I have gone before you in birth, in life and in death. I will conquer all that will come your way with my resurrection power." His Word reminds us that all authority in heaven and on earth is His, that even we are His, that every New Year is His. The Commander owns the day and has called us to seize the day, not cautiously, not timidly, but enthusiastically risking everything as we follow Him and serve Him and trust Him. And the Risen Christ, the Commander, makes a promise to us, an ending of the otter way covenant with us. I'll be with you as you do this, day after day after day, right up to the end of the age." (Mt.28.20)
