A mediation on the Eve of Epiphany…

This is the fullness of time –
when the Son of God
is begotten in you.
What is the test that you have indeed undergone this holy birth?
Listen carefully.
If this birth has truly taken place within you,
then no creature can any longer hinder you.
Rather, every single creature points you
toward God
and toward this birth.
You receive a rich potential for sensitivity,
a magnificent vulnerability.
In whatever you see or hear, no matter what it is,
you can absorb therein nothing but this birth.
In fact,
everything becomes for you
nothing but God.
For in the midst of all things,
you keep your eye only on God.
To grasp God in all things,
that is the sign
of your new birth.

Meister Eckhart, translation by Matthew Fox, from Meditations with Meister Eckhart    (p. 84, 83), with thanks to Barbara

…And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)

I keep thinking about this. Surely the reading of Romans 8:28 preferred by the translators of the NIV is the correct one. It is an insult—or at least an invitation to misunderstanding—to the bereaved, the critically ill, the abused and the neglected to say that “all things work together for good for those who love God,” as the excellent NRSV has it. They demonstrably don’t, at any rate not in this world. But to say that God works in them—ah, that is different. As Eckhart says, “Listen carefully. If this birth has truly taken place within you, then no creature can any longer hinder you. Rather, every single creature points you toward God and toward this birth. You receive a rich potential for sensitivity, a magnificent vulnerability. In whatever you see or hear, no matter what it is, you can absorb therein nothing but this birth.”

Let us pray, this Epiphany, that it is truly an epiphany for us, personally—that Christ is truly begotten in each one of us by faith, and that we know it! Then truly, “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:37-39)