Almost every night before I go to bed, I spend time reading about some topic—neuroscience, ultrarunning, holiday cookies, sleep problems, the latest possible medical reason for one my children’s illnesses.
Sometimes I even close my day with a devotional or reading through my Bible. This week I read a bit of Julian of Norwich. Living in the mid-1300s, Julian was an anchoress (“What’s that?” you ask?). Similar to living in a monastery, she was a religious recluse, dedicating a good portion of her life to solitude and prayer.
Julian of Norwich wrote Revelations of Divine Love, the earliest surviving book in the English language to be written by a woman. In it, she talks about a number of revelations of Jesus she received while being extremely ill years prior. Reflecting on her own sinful state, she penned these words of promise that she says she received from Jesus:
“It was necessary that there should be sin; but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”
She goes on to detail that, “These words were said most tenderly, showing no manner of blame to me nor to any who shall be saved.”
Tears burned at my eyes as I read this. “All manner of thing shall be well.” My mind flooded with scripture:
- Isaiah 1:18: “’Come now, let us settle the matter,’ says the LORD. ‘Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.’”
- Romans 8:38-39: “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.”
- Revelation 21:5: He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!”
Woven through the fabric of God’s being is this nearly unfathomable ability to forgive all manner of sin. In his nature is the ability to take all of our bad and make us good. My friend and I have an ongoing debate about the nature of people and our world—Are we inherently good with glimmers of bad, or are we inherently bad with glimmers of good? Understanding that we can argue in both directions, I believe deeply in the former.
God made this world good. He made us very good. And Adam and Eve failed him.
And we failed him.
But that’s not the end of the story.
Tears burned at my eyes when I read Julian of Norwich because of this: In that garden, when Adam and Eve were ashamed, GOD HIMSELF clothed them. In one of the most intimate acts in history, “The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.”
In Julian of Norwich’s vision, Jesus himself reminded her that when he says “all shall be well,” there is no judgment that cannot be transferred into forgiveness in the blink of an eye. There is no sin too far out of God’s forgiving reach. “Nothing,” indeed, “can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
In Reconciling All Things: A Christian Vision for Justice, Peace and Healing, Emmanuel Katongole and Chris Rice write, “When the One we love whispers, ‘All will be well,’ it is more than just wishful thinking. It is the fundamental truth of the universe.”
All will be well, friends. He will make all things well.
What strikes me, however, in Julian of Norwich and in Adam and Eve and in Isaiah and in Paul is this: it begins with a sense of shame. Healing starts only when we have the ability to see our own plank in our eye, our own sword in our hand, our own harsh tongue that lashes out too quickly, our own heart that has petrified itself so that it can’t have empathy or kindness or compassion.
This is a critical message for our churches today, many of which are exasperatingly close to the descriptive found in the church in Laodicea. Read closely these words (Rev. 3:15-20):
“I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.
I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.”
Where is the shame in our churches today? Where is the first step towards healing? Where is our sorrow:
- …for becoming too much like the world?
- …for not listening to the stories of pain in our churches?
- …for creating cultures of power and unaccountability and, God forbid, fear?
- …for allowing ourselves to become complacent and complicit to the injustice around us?
God’s gift to us is his ability to heal “all manner of thing.” Our gift to God is recognizing he is the only One who can do it.
This week, what would it look like for you, for me, for our churches to sit in stillness and silence before God and ask him to make “all manner of thing” well? What would it take for him to make our churches white like snow? For him to make all things new?
Next week, let’s talk specifics. What does a pure church look like, anyways? Is there such a thing?
I’m praying for you as you wander and wrestle, friends. It’s a hard, but beautiful journey. And the most important one you will be on.