God calls us Beloved; What the Epiphany reveals
By Ann Mulgrew, Assistant Director for Campus Ministry
This Christmas tide and this Epiphany is quite different than every other year that I’ve experienced it. There was no in-person celebrating and welcoming the newborn Christ for me and my family. There wasn’t the singing of “Silent Night” as a great-grandchild placed the baby in the Nativity scene. I could go on and on about what didn’t happen. But, instead, I would like to share what did happen.
This Christmas, I experienced the calm, simple, and loving presence of the newborn Christ child, despite all the absence of what typically is my Christmas. As the movie, “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” quotes, “It came. It came without buttons or bags. It came.” There I was, in my pj’s drinking a hot cup of coffee and just looking at the beauty of our backyard with some new fallen snow, and I knew. I knew that I was loved, by Jesus, born this day, and born for my sake. The absence of all the typical, helped to create an epiphany of the true meaning of Christmas, and how I must remember the truth of how Jesus came for ME and is my hope in a dark world. This past Sunday, January 3 marked the Feast of the Epiphany, a day that we often associate with the revelation of Jesus’ birth to the magi who followed the star. Yet, this feast also celebrates the revelation of God incarnate as Jesus Christ, sent for all of us.
Typically, I know this. I try to live this faith fully in the ways in which I minister at Marquette University, whether it is while living as a Hall Minister in Eckstein or leading Service and Social Justice programs within Campus Ministry. Yet, like others, I can start focusing too much on “doing” this or that program instead of “being” within the faith that makes me an activist for justice. I have moved away from the gift of the child born for me and therefore, distanced myself a bit from my hope in this darkness. It was good to know this deeper and truer love, again. **
This week’s readings after the Epiphany are a line of first readings from 1 John that point out the essential key to knowing God is to know love. For God is love and in loving, we know God. Most of these letters start with the intimate, calling of “Beloved.” God calls us beloved. Beloved. BELOVED. Sit with that endearment for some time and help yourself know the love of God for you, all of you, warts and all. The truth that I am God’s beloved often hits me right in my heart when I stop to realize this. It did, again, this Christmas morning. This is the sign or the gift that is all I need.
**Side Note — Often, I unconsciously hum or sing songs that relate to moments I’m in. On Christmas morning, as I was pondering all this, I began to sing, “I love you Lord (and I lift my voice).” It is my go-to soundtrack song for just this moment of knowing Christ’s love. Listen to the words. Stand to the simple, yet boldly proclaimed words of “I LOVE YOU, LORD!” Maybe this is the epiphany you need to receive or give at this time.
