Does God Delight in Crushing us?

I often am asked how to interpret a certain troubling part of Isaiah 53 "Yet the Lord delighted to crush him and cause him to suffer" (verse 10). A typical way to understand this is in the context of penal substitutionary atonement, so that it means that God delighted to see his beloved servant, Jesus, suffer. It was the will of the father to "crush" his son.

That's a reading that makes God seem unjust, and even sadistic. That seems wrong of course. God the Father is not a monster, right? But what are we to do with that troubling phrase "Yet the Lord.."?

First of all we need to begin by recognizing the genre we are reading. This is poetry, which is a form of writing that uses dramatic descriptions to paint a powerful picture. In particular, this poem paints the picture of a tragic irony where the one who was thought to be guilty turns out to be innocent, the one who was believed to be bad turns out to be the one who brings healing to us all. It is a poem of reversal. We thought he was accused and condemned, but it is in fact we who are guilty.

To see this unfolding drama of reversal we need to take in all of the poem, which actually begins in chapter 52:13-15. It can be difficult with a more literal word for word translation because the flow of the poem, the unfolding story, can get lost in translation. So instead let's listen to a translation that keeps the poetic/dramatic flow,

Indeed, who would ever believe it?
Who would possibly accept what we’ve been told?
Who has witnessed the awesome power and plan of the Eternal in action?

Out of emptiness he came, like a tender shoot from rock-hard ground.
He didn’t look like anything or anyone of consequence—
he had no physical beauty to attract our attention.

So he was despised and forsaken by men,
this man of suffering, grief’s patient friend.
As if he was a person to avoid, we looked the other way;
he was despised, forsaken, and we took no notice of him.

Yet it was our suffering he carried,
our pain and distress, our sick-to-the-soul-ness.
We just figured that God had rejected him,
that God was the reason he hurt so badly.

But he was hurt because of us; he suffered so.
Our wrongdoing wounded and crushed him.
He endured the breaking that made us whole.
The injuries he suffered became our healing.
(Isa 53:1-5, the Voice)

Can you hear the unfolding story here? It begins with an expression of shock and disbelief, "Can you believe it?!" the poet asks, "Who would have thought God’s saving power would look like this?" It goes on to tell the story of suffering and affliction, and how the people--referred to here as "we" had assumed that this poor suffering soul was being punished by God.

If you are sick, it must be because you are guilty. If you are suffering hardship, or starvation, or misfortune, it must be because you deserve it. That's the assumption of the law, echoed by many of the Hebrew prophets. It's a huge theme we find all through the Old Testament. Yet in parts of the Old Testament, this assumption is questioned. It's questioned in many of the Psalms, certainly in Job, and it is questioned here in Isaiah. Here the idea comes forward that perhaps sometimes people can suffer for righteousness, people can suffer who are innocent.

The trouble with that idea is that if the innocent suffer, this begs the question, how can a good God allow this? Is God not good and loving? Or perhaps even more frightening to contemplate, is God not really in control?

That's where we have the turn in this poem, with the small but powerful word "yet" which in Hebrew is just a single letter. Up til now in the story, we should have our hands clasped over our mouths, shocked and ashamed at this picture of injustice, and the role we have played in it. The picture painted here is not at all one of justice fulfilled, but deliberately the polar opposite. It is a picture of a miscarriage of justice, of a grave injustice. "By oppression and judgment he was taken away" (v8, ESV), and we are not portrayed as passive observers in this story, but revealed as guilty.  We caused his suffering, we hurt him.

But even still, we are told, God has a plan in this... a plan, Isaiah tells us, that God "delights" in. Again, this is Hebrew poetry which frequently uses hyper-dramatic descriptions to stress a point. So while the text literally says that "the Lord delighted in crushing him" it seems highly unlikely that it was Isaiah's intent to make us think "Wow, Yahweh is really unjust and evil!" Rather, Isaiah wants to pull us into a riddle, he wants us to struggle with him in trying to figure out how it can be that God can have a part in this crazy story of injustice, and how somehow out of that injustice good can result. How can this be? How does this work?

Now jump forward to the time of Jesus, and put yourself in the shoes of the disciples, post crucifixion, post resurrection, trying to make sense of what God has done in Jesus. They have seen Jesus unjustly accused by Rome, condemned and sentenced to torture and death. And yet, they say, as wrong and horrible as all that was, God had a plan to somehow bring about our healing and redemption.

Digging through their Scriptures, they come upon this poem in Isaiah and exclaim "Yes! Here it is! We've seen this story unfold before us!" Perhaps more than in any other part of the Old Testament, the writers of the New Testament identified the Servant Song with Jesus. What I want to propose is that it is also in this Christological reading that we can understand what Isaiah means. We need to read Isaiah 53 through the lens of Jesus.

Listen to how Peter frames this in his sermon at Pentecost, "This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him" (Acts 2:23-24, NIV). Note that Peter sees all of this as part of God's plan, but what happens is wicked and wrong. This can be summed up in Peter's phrase "You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead." (Acts 3:15).

We see this same pattern in the story of Joseph and his brothers. His brothers plot to kill him, but Joseph declares, "What you meant for harm, God meant for good" (Genesis 20:50). This is what that little word "yet" signifies. It's about how God takes evil and uses it to bring about good. Not because God delights in evil or injustice, but because God delights in taking what is broken and turning it into something good and beautiful. God uses the cross, and uses it to bring about our salvation. God delights in taking what is bad and evil, and making it good. This is the great reversal of the cross. Beauty from ashes. Life from death.

Our task is to learn how to walk in that same way as Jesus. How can we learn to practice self-sacrificing love? How can we learn to take what is truly bad in our lives, and yet somehow work with God to bring about good from it nevertheless? Not by calling evil good, not by denying the reality of our pain, not by ignoring injustice, not by glorying suffering. That's all wrong, and underscores that this is not easy. Yet... yet the cross points us to a way to turn that around, it points us to resurrection.

The Theology of the Cross as an Answer to the Problem of Evil

The Old Testament can be read as one long debate about the problem of evil and unjust suffering. It begins by declaring in the law that God will keep his people from suffering if they only follow and obey. If anyone is suffering, it declares, this is because they have sinned and been unfaithful. Then along comes books like the Psalms, Ecclesiastes, and Job where this law is questioned. They complain that they are suffering unjustly. These books call God to task, saying "I am suffering, yet I have been faithful. What's going on?! Why are you letting this happen? This is wrong!"

In short, the question "Why would an all-powerful and good God allow evil?" did not originate with atheism, rather it originated way before that in the pages of the Hebrew Scriptures. It is a part of our sacred texts. If we understand the Psalms as examples of prayers and worship, then asking that kind of heart-wrenching question filled with desperation and pain and anger is... an act of worship. It is a part of the liturgy of prayer. Selah.

Now that kind of protest-as-worship is quite different from the common religious response to the question of "Why would an all-powerful and good God allow evil?" (which is known as the question of "theodicy"). Here the focus is typically on maintaining the all-powerful side of things at the expense of love and goodness. Explanations will be given as to why what seems to be horrific and devastatingly bad is in fact good and loving. It's all part of a bigger plan, you see. These arguments attempt to tell us how it is somehow "loving" to allow this horrible thing in order to preserve the idea that God is in control.

It's easy to understand why the stress is placed on keeping the all-powerful part. We want desperately to believe that things are under control. We need to believe that. But consider the history of the Israelites: They were enslaved by Egypt. God liberated them, and they had a moment in the sun, but then they were put under the thumb of Assyria, and then Babylon, then Persia, then Greece, and finally under Rome. Basically they were passed as the spoils of war from one conquering nation to the next for generations upon generations. This is a people who know suffering.

The prophets told them that this was because of their unfaithfulness, and if they would just repent then all this suffering would stop. So they did repent, and the temple was rebuilt. But they were still under enemy rule (at the time of the rebuilding of the second temple they were under Persian rule if you're keeping score here).

So consider that history and put yourself in the shoes of a Jewish first century follower of Jesus the Messiah (in Greek: "the Christ"). The idea was that the messiah would be a warrior-king like David. The hope was that the messiah would come and restore Israel to power, and the unjust suffering of Gentile oppression of so many long years would finally stop.

Now, put yourself at the cross. The one that you had hoped would end all the injustice you and your family and your people have suffered for so long is being shamed and tortured and killed before your eyes. Jesus is dying, and all your hopes in God to make things right and good are dying with him on that cross. 

The reaction of the disciples was to run and hide. Jürgen Moltmann has said, “Christians who do not have the feeling that they must flee the crucified Christ have probably not yet understood him in a sufficiently radical way.”

Along those same lines, let me say this: Most Christians do not understand the implications of the cross.  Most Christians still hold to what Luther called a "theology of glory." Luther declares, "A theology of glory calls evil good and good evil. A theology of the cross calls the thing what it actually is." That's exactly what we experience with typical apologetic responses to the problem of evil. We are told that what seems to be evil is actually good, and we just need to trust God's wisdom here. 

A theology of the cross does not do that. A theology of the cross begins by facing the reality of human suffering head-on. It speaks to those who are in a place of suffering and begins by saying "this suffering you are experiencing is painful and bad. It is not good. It is not deserved. It seeks to offer support and love and compassion, but no matter how much love and goodness may come after this, it does not change the fact that this bad thing really is bad.

Jesus shows us how God enters into our world of suffering and becomes a victim of unjust suffering. That is the crucified God, and that understanding of God completely changes how we understand who God is. It kills the understanding of a God of power and control. Because of this, Moltmann says “Only a Christian can be a good atheist.” What he means is that to call the crucified God "Lord" is to declare that the God of power, the God of Caesar, the God of empire, and indeed the God of Christiandom... is not. 

That God of power is an idol. It is an attractive idol to be sure. Of course we want to believe that God is in control, and that bad things can't happen to us if we are good. But as much as I wish it were not the case, bad things do happen to good people.

What's more, when we go to those who are suffering, seeking to show love and help, this can hurt us. Working with the poor and oppressed may sound romantic, but that's not reality. The fact is, it hurts to share in the grief and pain of another. The word compassion means literally "co-pain" and there's a lot of truth in that. We know a guy who volunteered to help victims following a natural disaster. Years later he is still dealing with the trauma that resulted from what he experienced there. He insists he would do it all over again, but the trauma he now carries from it is still real. He carries those scars, scars born of compassion.

The answer to the problem of evil that we see in the God revealed on the cross is one that calls us to join with those who suffer. That's hard, and carries a cost. It does not come offering explanations, but offering our lives, our selves. It is an image of God who carries scars, and who asks us to love like that, too.

It's been said that the greatest act of courage is found in losing everything worth living for, and deciding nevertheless to live. The reason that I hold to the theology of the cross is because it can face the hard reality of our broken and unjust world and still allow me to hold on to trust and hope and, most of all, hold on to love. We as humans need to hold on to love. 

Jesus, on the night before his death, ate a last meal with his disciples. He told them he was going away, but stressed that they were not being abandoned. He told them they would suffer too, "in this world you will have trouble, but take heart, for I have overcome the world" (John 16:33). That is the tension we need to live in: Suffering happens, especially when we love greatly, but somehow we need to hold on to our trust in goodness and love despite it. That is the courageous balancing act of trusting in love in our broken world, trusting in the crucified God. 

Most of all Jesus asked his friends to promise him that when he was gone they would love each other as he had loved them. The way we can truly answer the problem of evil in our world is by learning how to do that. So when you encounter suffering, don't explain, don't justify. But as Paul says, remain in these three things--trust, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love.

Wrestling with God

"It seemed to me certain, and I still think so today, that one can never wrestle enough with God if one does so out of pure regard for the truth. Christ likes us to prefer truth to him because, before being Christ, he is truth. If one turns aside from him to go toward the truth, one will not go far before falling into his arms."

-Simone Weil, Waiting for God

The bitter reality of war

My friends at Picture Atlantic have a new album out called Dulce et Decorum Est which is Latin for "It is sweet and good". It's the title of a famous poem from World War I by Wilfred Owen which painfully captures the bitter reality of war,

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori.

The last line translated from the Latin is "it is sweet and right to die for your country"

I see that boy drowning from mustard gas, his desperate eyes of looking into mine. I curse the night that is war, and I pray God's comfort and strength for everyone who has lost a loved one, and for those who are in the middle of that hell. I just have to believe that Jesus is stronger than all the death and pain we can dish out in this broken world.

on theodicy, suffering, and remembering

I can't read these two quotes without crying. I offer them both as a prayer.

These are the words of Elie Weisel, a survivor of the Holocaust, from his book Night,

Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky.

Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith for ever.

Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live.

Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.

Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live
as long as God Himself.

Never.

And from Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov,

Oh, Alyosha, I am not blaspheming! I understand, of course, what an upheaval of the universe it will be when everything in heaven and earth blends in one hymn of praise and everything that lives and has lived cries aloud: 'Thou art just, O Lord, for Thy ways are revealed.' When the mother embraces the fiend who threw her child to the dogs, and all three cry aloud with tears, 'Thou art just, O Lord!' then, of course, the crown of knowledge will be reached and all will be made clear. But what pulls me up here is that I can't accept that harmony. And while I am on earth, I make haste to take my own measures.

You see, Alyosha, perhaps it really may happen that if I live to that moment, or rise again to see it, I, too, perhaps, may cry aloud with the rest, looking at the mother embracing the child's torturer, 'Thou art just, O Lord!' but I don't want to cry aloud then. While there is still time, I hasten to protect myself, and so I renounce the higher harmony altogether.

It's not worth the tears of that one tortured child who beat itself on the breast with its little fist and prayed in its stinking outhouse, with its unexpiated tears to 'dear, kind God'! It's not worth it, because those tears are unatoned for. They must be atoned for, or there can be no harmony. But how? How are you going to atone for them? Is it possible? By their being avenged? But what do I care for avenging them? What do I care for a hell for oppressors? What good can hell do, since those children have already been tortured? And what becomes of harmony, if there is hell?

I want to forgive. I want to embrace. I don't want more suffering. And if the sufferings of children go to swell the sum of sufferings which was necessary to pay for truth, then I protest that the truth is not worth such a price. I don't want the mother to embrace the oppressor who threw her son to the dogs! She dare not forgive him! Let her forgive him for herself, if she will, let her forgive the torturer for the immeasurable suffering of her mother's heart. But the sufferings of her tortured child she has no right to forgive; she dare not forgive the torturer, even if the child were to forgive him! And if that is so, if they dare not forgive, what becomes of harmony? Is there in the whole world a being who would have the right to forgive and could forgive?

I don't want harmony. From love for humanity I don't want it. I would rather be left with the unavenged suffering. I would rather remain with my unavenged suffering and unsatisfied indignation, even if I were wrong. Besides, too high a price is asked for harmony; it's beyond our means to pay so much to enter on it.

And so I hasten to give back my entrance ticket, and if I am an honest man I am bound to give it back as soon as possible. And that I am doing. It's not God that I don't accept, Alyosha, only I most respectfully return him the ticket.

Victor Hugo on Slavery and Prostitution

The following is a passage from Les Misérables. Hugo here is describing Fantine who has sunk to prostitution in her poverty,

"What is the story of Fantine about? It is about society buying a slave.

From whom? From misery.

From hunger, from cold, from loneliness, from desertion, from privation. Melancholy barter. A soul for a piece of bread. Misery makes the offer; society accepts.

The holy law of Jesus Christ governs our civilization, but it does not yet permeate it. They say that slavery has disappeared from European civilization. That is incorrect. It still exists, but now it weighs only on women, and it is called prostitution.

It weighs on women, that is to say, on grace, frailty, beauty, motherhood. This is not the least among man’s shames.

At this stage in the mournful drama, Fantine has nothing left of what she had formerly been. She has turned to marble in becoming corrupted. Whoever touches her feels a chill. She goes her way, she endures you, she ignores you; she is the incarnation of dishonor and severity. Life and the social order have spoken their last word to her. All that can happen to her has happened. She has endured all, borne all, experienced all, suffered all, lost all, wept for all."

I can't help here but think of the words of Isaiah:

Surely he took up our infirmities
and carried our sorrows,
yet we considered him stricken by God,
smitten by him, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.

Hugo's chapter here is called Christus nos Liberavit - Christ our Liberator.

The Talmud on Substitutionary Atonement

A reference in the TDNT lead me to a great book called Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch which translated means "Commentary to the New Testament from the Talmud and Midrash" (Hermann Strack & Paul Billerbeck, Munich: C.H. Beck, 1926). The Talmud is a massive multi volume work that catalogs the "oral law" (Mishnah) which Jews believed God gave to Moses along with the written law. The oral law was used to interpret the written law (similar to how we use a Bible commentary), but seen as equally authoritative to Scripture. As the title indicates, the book uses the Talmud to gain an accurate idea of Jewish thought as it applies to New Testament themes.

For example I was researching Paul's statement in Gal 3:13 that Christ had "become a curse for us". According to the Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch (from now on KNTTM) the the idea that a person could become an atonement for another by bearing their suffering was a common one in the ancient Jewish Synagogue (KNTTM vol 3, p 261). Paul himself in Ro 9:3 wishes that he could become a curse for the sake of his people the Jews. The KNTTM says that "I will be an atonement for so and so" was a common expression in ancient Judaism. For example the Babylonian Talmud says that when the high priest was mourning his wife the people would say "we are your atonement!" (Sanhedrin 2:1). Rabbi Ishmael (135AD) says "I will be an atonement for the children of Israel" (Talmud Nega'im 2:1). The KNTTM gives numerous other examples of this type.

In 1st Kings a prophesy is given over King Ahab "This is what the LORD says: 'You have set free a man I had determined should die. Therefore it is your life for his life, your people for his people." (1 Ki 20:42). Ahab dies in battle (ch 22) but the Israelites don't. Commenting on this in the Jerusalem Talmud R. Jochanan (279) says in the name of R. Shimeon (150) that “That single drop of blood that flowed from that righteous man atoned for all of Israel” (Talmud Yerushalmi: Sanhedrin 11, 7, 30c). Commentators disagree as to whether he is referring to the future king Josaphat who was also wounded or the prophet who was socked in the law in chapter 20. What is important here is the idea of a righteous one through suffering atoning for the sins of the people.

Particularly interesting is this passage from 4th Maccabees which refers to the martyrdom of Eleazer and the Maccabeean youths, "The tyrant was punished, and the homeland purified -- they having become, as it were, a ransom for the sin of our nation. And through the blood of those devout ones and their death as an atonement, divine Providence preserved Israel that previously had been afflicted." (4 Macc 17:20-22) Along these lines Martyrdom is especially regarded in the Talmud as atoning for the people (KNTTM vol 2, p. 275)

The point here is not that these passages are authoritative in any way, but simply that they reveal how the the idea of one bearing the sins of many was prevalent in the Jewish imagination at the time of Christ. It's challenging to work through all these quotes, but what seems to emerge is not so much a legal formula so much as a sentiment similar to when people say things today like "take me, but let them go!"

What's interesting is that with such a prevalent notion of vicarious suffering as a means of atonement, you would think that the Jews at the time of Jesus would have expected a suffering messiah, but they did not. Jews at the time of Jesus believed that the Messiah (who they expected to be a human king) would come in glory and usher in God's kingdom. He would be untouchable. This is pretty much a parallel to how most Christians envision the 2nd coming. After the time of Jesus, as the idea of the eternal soul became widespread, some rabbis conceived of a suffering Messiah who is ever present with suffering people here. One Midrash tells how God hid the light of the world under his throne after he used it to create the world. When Satan asked him who the light was for, God answered "For those who are ashamed and hide their faces". Satan then asks to see the Light who is the pre-existent Messiah, and when he sees him Satan falls on his face shaken with fear saying "Truly this is the Messiah who will hurl be into Gehenna, destroy death forever, and wipe the tears from each face." echoing the words of Jer 31:9 (Midrash Pesikta Rabbati 36 -161a).

Note that while the Messiah is seen here as the comforter, and elsewhere as co-suffering with Israel, this is not viewed as atoning. The Targum Jonathan was an Aramaic translation of the Hebrew Bible which predates Christ. In its very free-form translation we can see that Isaiah 53 is clearly seen as messianic,

"Behold, my servant the Messiah shall prosper, He shall be exalted and extolled, and He shall be very strong. " (Isa 52:13 Targum Jonathan)

but all reference to the messiah suffering have also been changed, so that the suffering and shame are applied the people not the servant,

"Therefore He shall pray for our sins, and our iniquities for His sake shall be forgiven us; for we are considered crushed, smitten of the Lord, and afflicted." (Isa 53:5 Targum Jonathan)

So we can see that the idea of redemptive suffering was a deep part o Jewish thought leading up to the time of Jesus, but at the same time oddly disassociated with the messiah. Mosses, David, and the Prophets are all seen as bearing the sins of the people. So why the disconnect with the Messiah? The only answer I can find is that it has to do with what they expected the time of Messiah would bring which was a time were there was no suffering at all. I'd like to see that happen too, but in the meantime I'm glad that God suffers with us and comes among us in our need.

The Kelsey Shelton Briggs Story

This made me cry

God's Justice

In the OT justice is primarily focused on Israel who is oppressed under pagan captivity calling out for justice. We can see this is the Psalms which speak of being "saved" from those who pursue and attack David, to the Prophets who speak of the poor being lifted up from under their burden. Jesus quotes several of these prophesies that speak of good news to the poor, and it is from this understandable that the Jews at the time expected the Messiah to be one who would destroy the evil pagans and restore Israel to its former glory.

But the message of the NT and Jesus instead says that evil is not just "them" over there, it is "us". We are all sinners, and if we only seek to destroy the bad guys to bring about justice, we will find ourselves at the end of that sword. To put this in the language of Paul, we have all sinned, we are all guilty, and we are all subject to wrath. So the good news of wrath - that the bad guys are gonna get it - is really bad news because we are all guilty of oppressing and hurting others.

At the same time though we are also victims of sin. Both sin done to us by others, and also by our own sins that imprison us in hurtful self -destructive behavior. So while we need to be saved from wrath, that can't be all. There needs to be a different way for justice to come about, not by destroying our enemies (which will just come back to get us since we are all guilty of hurting others), but of a way to lift ourselves out of the bondage of hurting, and to stop the cycle of blame and revenge. So here we go from the idea of retributive justice (and also of the idea of acquittal from retributive justice) to the idea of restorative justice, of a justice focused on setting things right, mending what was broken. Because while we now see in the light of the NT that we are the oppressor, we are at the same time the victim too. The victim of others hurtfulness, but also the victim of our own hurtfulness, and merely not getting punished does not actually take us out of that bondage to hurt we are stuck in. It does not bring about justice in us to simply get clemency. We need to go beyond a punitive model to a restorative model that heals what has been broken in us and our world, one that redeems and makes all things new, that gives us new life. Going from the way of and eye for an eye to the way of overcoming evil with good through love of enemies and unmerited grace that God demonstrates by loving us first while we were his enemies because of our hurtfulness. That is the good news to the poor.

A devotional reading of Julian of Norwich

I've been reading Julian of Norwich's "Revelations of Divine Love". Julian was a mystic who lived ca. 1342-1413 and in deathly sickness dictated several visions she had of Christ's love and suffering. Her writings are so rich on so many levels, I am sure I will come back to them again and again. This was my favorite reading since the Didache (which I think should be canonized). I immediately connected with Julian's heart, and recognized in her my own experiences with God. I find it pretty amazing that although centuries separate us, I can see in her my own experiences and longings. Since Julian's writings are of a very intimate and personal nature, I wanted to respond to them here both personally and devotionally.

The text begins with her longing for God, and pursuit of intimacy. Echoing Augustine's "Our hearts are restless till they rest in thee," she writes, "No soul is rested till it is made nought as to all things that are made" (Ch 5). Reading this made me recall a vision I had several years ago:

I stood on a vast expanse and heard God declare,
"This is the foundation your life is built on."
Suddenly the ground split at my feet and I found myself standing at the edge of a cliff staring into the abyss.
"That was the part of your life based on your own religion and philosophy."
the voice thundered. The ground split again hurdling another portion of the ground into the nothingness
"This was built on your friends and family."
Blow by blow, my foundation was demolished until I found myself teetering on a narrow beam,
"This is the part of your life your have built on me."

This vision of my foundation "coming to naught" launched me into what I later found was called "the dark night of the soul" where God seems utterly absent and by facing ones own darkness, you come into a deeper intimacy with God. I think in her sickness and visions of Christ's sufferings Julian was on a similar journey. She recognizes that our suffering is not always the consequence of us doing something wrong, but can even come from doing something right.

"God willeth that we know that He keepeth us even alike secure in woe and in weal. And for profit of man’s soul, a man is sometime left to himself; although sin is not always the cause" (Ch 40).

God does not leave us in our darkness. I was always taught to fear missing God's will. But like Julian I have learned that I cannot escape God's love. It will find me in my darkness, it will search me out in Hell. This understanding of God's sovereign unrelenting love gives me an incredible freedom to risk. That's a rocky journey at times, and Julian describes the back and forth of this pursuit "I saw Him, and sought Him; and I had Him, I wanted Him" (Ch 10). again echoing Augustine's “ I tasted, and I hunger and thirst. You touched me, and I burned for your peace”. Yet even as we thirst for God, God also thirsts for us; as we pursue, we are at the same time pursued,

"The same desire and thirst that He had upon the Cross.. the same hath He yet... For as verily as there is a property in God of ruth and pity, so verily there is a property in God of thirst and longing" (Ch 31).

As she grows closer to Jesus, she next begins to share in his pain "How might any pain be more to me than to see Him that is all my life, all my bliss, and all my joy, suffer?" (Ch 17), and out of that com-passion that she begins to care for the things that Jesus does, taking on his heart for the lost. Julian thus begins to ask questions of suffering and injustice. Why do people suffer? What of those who in their grief are torn from faith, and are crushed in hope?

"There be deeds evil done in our sight, and so great harms taken, that it seemeth to us that it were impossible that ever it should come to good end. And upon this we look, sorrowing and mourning therefor, so that we cannot resign us unto the blissful beholding of God as we should do" (Ch 32).

She next turns to ask how there can ever be justice when people are suffering in Hell?

"One point of our Faith is that many creatures shall be... condemned to hell without end, as Holy Church teacheth me to believe. And all this standing, methought it was impossible that all manner of things should be well" (Ch 32).

I found myself in my pursuit of God led to these same questions of suffering, injustice and Hell. On one occasion I told Jesus that I did not want to be in heaven when people I love were suffering in Hell. I saw myself marching defiantly out of heaven and down into Hades, but to my surprise when I got there I saw Christ on his knees, ministering to those in chains. He turned to me and said "I was wondering when you were going to get here." I realized then that in even in my protest, God had not so much followed me into my sufferings, as I followed him into his. Julian writes,

"Every man’s sorrow and desolation He saw, and sorrowed for Kindness and love...For as long as He was passible He suffered for us and sorrowed for us; and now He is uprisen and no more passible, yet He suffereth with us" (Ch 20).

The answer she receives from God to these questions of suffering is a theme repeated throughout the revelations

"All shall be made well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well". (Chapters 27, 31, 32, 34, 63, 63, and 68).

She cannot explain how, and even says that it seems impossible, God simply tells her to trust, because He can do the impossible. What she does know is that we are to join Christ in his passion here which manifests itself in com-passion.

"Thus was our Lord Jesus made-naught for us; and all we stand in this manner made-naught with Him" (Ch18).

This is not a glorification of suffering, but the cost of love. Julia describes the beautiful way that Christ expresses his love for us in his cross. Jesus says to Julian that he would have suffered for her again and again if it had been needful, so great is his love for us.

"It is a joy and bliss and endless pleasing to me that ever I suffered Passion for thee. And this is the bliss of Christ’s works, and thus he signifieth where He saith in that same Shewing: we be His bliss, we be His meed, we be His worship, we be His crown" (Ch 31).

We are not called to a holiness of separation, but a holiness of entering into the ugliness and brokenness of the world,

"When we give our intent to love and meekness, by the working of mercy and grace we are made all fair and clean..." (Ch 40).

This is how we are sanctified, through the cross. Jesus shows us a way to combat evil, through the way of overcoming it with good. The law of mercy triumphs over the law of sin and death, the law of an eye for an eye.

"...For Christ Himself is the ground of all the laws of Christian men, and He taught us to do good against ill..." (Ch 40).

This is not the command of a distant God in heaven, but the call of the one who came to serve and gave his life, and bids us to come and join him in his compassion, to take up our cross and follow.

"...Here may we see that He is Himself this charity, and doeth to us as He teacheth us to do. For He willeth that we be like Him in wholeness of endless love to ourself and to our even-Christians" (Ch 40).

The end goal of this is not suffering, but to end suffering. All will be made well, and all matter of things will be made well.