John 1:35-42

The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, 36 and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, "Look, here is the Lamb of God!" 37 The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. 38 When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, "What are you looking for?" They said to him, "Rabbi" (which translated means Teacher), "where are you staying?" 39 He said to them, "Come and see." They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon. 40 One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. 41 He first found his brother Simon and said to him, "We have found the Messiah" (which is translated Anointed ). 42 He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, "You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas" (which is translated Peter).

Today’s gospel tells of a pair of John’s disciples who leave their teacher behind in order to follow Jesus, the new rabbi on the scene. One of these new disciples is so moved by his first day with Jesus that he goes and recruits another disciple to follow Jesus. The gospel’s message for us today is right there on the surface: our call as disciples is to be drawn so deeply into the loving presence of Christ that we go and share that invitation to others. That’s my whole sermon, summed up, so you can tune out for the rest if you desire; but you’ll probably want to hear the case study I’m going to share with you.

I’ve managed to experience a lifetime in a Lutheran congregation, four years at a Christian university, and four years of seminary without hearing the name Julian of Norwich. Through my spiritual formation classes I have recently been introduced to her and I am excited to tell you about Julian this morning because she provides a fascinating entry to explore just what it means to desire and follow God.

Julian of Norwich lived as a Benedictine nun in the late-14th and early-15th centuries. Much of her life was spent as an anchoress, meaning that she lived outside the church in a tiny stone structure that was completely sealed up. There was one opening to the outside through which items could be passed and people could come and converse with her. There was also something called a squint--a narrow vertical opening that permitted a view of nothing but the altar, which is a powerful image of how one can focus one’s life on God alone. I realize this might not be the best way to describe someone who we are to emulate, as I don’t know how many of you find this lifestyle appealing, but hear me out.

When Julian was six years old the Black Plague made its way to England for the first time. Entire communities were decimated. The first epidemic lasted three years and claimed the lives of 3/4 of the population of Norwich. The plague was a brutal and disgusting disease. Everyone who survived was traumatized from the experience of witnessing the disease decimate their families and communities. Through this time Christianity remained the primary religion in the region. Think for a moment what you would believe about God if you were raised in an environment filled with that much suffering, death, and destruction. Most believed that their suffering was brought on by the actions of a wrathful God. The people assumed that God meant to wipe them out due to their sin, just as in the days of the Biblical flood.

Out of this environment Julian felt a desire to know God better, which I think is a miraculous sentiment. I can’t imagine desiring to become better acquainted with a wrathful God who was presumed to be responsible for the death and destruction that literally plagued the world. Specifically, Julian desired three things from God: 1) to understand the cross; 2) to overcome her fear of God’s judgment; and 3) to trust God more. Julian served as a nun and waited for ten years before receiving a revelation from God that would address her questions and situate her as one of the most cherished Christian mystics.

“On May 13th, 1373, Julian was succumbing to a disease thought to be the plague. Her breathing became ragged; she was barely alive. Julian asked her mother to help her sit up to ease her breathing. When the priest arrived, he held up a crucifix for Julian to gaze upon for comfort as he administered Last Rites and prayed for her soul. With effort, Julian focused on the cross. Then her sight appeared to be failing; she could see nothing but the cross alone. A bright light shone on the figure of Jesus, like sunlight through a window, but she could not identify its source.

‘This is death,’ she thought, as a great weight seemed to press upon her chest.

Then, in an instant, the pain vanished like the lifting of a curtain! And the figure on the cross before her started to bleed! It bled freely, as the image came alive and Jesus looked at her. And thus began a ten-hour conversation with Jesus which addressed humanity’s deepest questions about sin, suffering and grace.“*

She would fully recover from her illness and set to work writing down everything she experienced during her ten-hour revelation.This would end up as the work Revelations of Divine Love. Her experience deserves more than a one-word summary, but I don’t think she would mind if I summarized her experience as joyful.

Her experience of God was joyful because she received insight into God’s sufferings and his love for us. “Julian’s message remains one of hope and trust in God, whose compassionate love is always given to us. In this all-gracious God there can be no element of wrath. The wrath — ‘all that is contrary to peace and love — is in us and not in God. God’s saving work in Jesus of Nazareth and in the gift of God's spirit, is to counteract our wrath in the power of his merciful and compassionate love'. Julian did not perceive God as blaming or judging us, but as enfolding us in love.”**

Julian writes that at one point during her experience of God’s revelation God showed her a hazelnut. “In this little thing I saw three properties. The first is that God made it, the second is that God loves it, the third is that God preserves it.” This vision showed Julian God’s identity as Creator, protector, and lover. She goes on to write, “For until I am substantially united to him, I can never have perfect rest or true happiness, until, that is, I am so attached to him that there can be no created thing between my God and me.”

In the context of abhorrent death and destruction, of a wrathful God determined to destroy humankind, and of her very own demise, Julian received a vision of God’s goodness and love. Through the vision God taught her that sin would not have the final word. This led her to write down a sentence that I hope you will cherish: “Though sin is inevitable, all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

I began this message by telling you where I would end up: that our call as disciples is to be drawn so deeply into the loving presence of Christ that we go and share that invitation to others. If our heart's desire is to know God better, it will happen. Christ will be revealed to us. The revelation of God in Christ will change the course of our lives. And people will desperately want to know more about the God of grace, love, and truth whom we have encountered.

Julian of Norwich has been someone who points me toward the loving presence of Christ. Her testimony makes me want to encounter God in new and profound ways, so that I can come to believe for myself that “though sin is inevitable, all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

Amen.

* Mimi Dixon, “The Contemplative Stream: Julian of Norwich” (lecture, Renovaré Institute of Christian Spiritual Formation), November 19, 2020.
** http://juliancentre.org/about/about-julian-of-norwich.html

John 1:1-5, 10-14, 16-18

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

I want to start by sharing a video with you – it’s short and sweet, just 4 minutes – about grief, from someone who has done some serious thinking about and living with it in just the last four years. Her name is Nora McInerny and I’ll let her tell you what you need to know…

For what it’s worth, there is more to this Ted Talk – another 10 minutes, or so, to be exact – if you want to look her up on your own. She also has a podcast called, “Terrible, Thanks for Asking,” which seems interesting enough, if you’re curious. But this caught my attention a couple of weeks ago and I think it’s so much of what brings us here tonight.

When we started having these “Blue Christmas” worship services 10 years or so ago, they were new to me – and kind of a new thing in this neck of the woods, as far as I could tell at the time. And what started – in my mind – as a special kind of service, meant to serve a small, niche of a target audience – has become, in my mind, something I believe is – or should be – for anyone and everyone – because grief is or will be for every one of us at some time or another, if it hasn’t crossed our path just yet.

And I believe it is a hard and holy and faithful practice to own our grief, the way Nora McInerny describes it. Whatever it is that brings us here – or whatever griefs that find us in this life – the death of loved ones (or the fear of losing ones we love), the loss of jobs, the troubles of our children, the struggles of addiction, the fighting in our families, the ending of relationships, whatever it may be – these events mark us, indelibly. These events and experiences make us and reshape us as people in the world and as children of God. And it’s silly, if not delusional, to pretend or to believe or to behave otherwise.

So, my hope for tonight is never to prevent grief, or to fix grief, or to pretend that struggle and sadness are not part of life in this world or part of our life in this season. In fact, tonight is about precisely the opposite. It’s about naming just exactly for what and why God showed up, in Jesus, in the first place. Jesus wasn’t born just for the fun of it – for the sake of celebration and joy and mistletoe and silent nights, remember.

Jesus was born for such a time as this – as much as anything else. Jesus was born for the sake of the lost and lowly, for the sake of the grieving and struggling, for the sick and lonely, for the dark and despairing. And tonight is about remembering the truth of that and the hope there is in that truth. And it’s about letting our faith – and our friends who share it – surround us in ways that we trust together, and hope together, and endure together. And, if you’re not sure you have it in you to trust or hope or endure or believe at every turn these days, tonight is about letting someone else trust for you, or hope for you, or endure for and with and alongside you, if that will help.

Because, if we’re honest, this season is about multi-tasking with more than just the shopping lists and the food prep and the visits with family and whatever else keeps us so busy. This season is also, very much about multi-tasking our emotions.

It’s about holding our grief and our fear and our struggles in one hand, even while the world around us is trying to hand us cookies and smiles and celebrations and all kinds of wonderful reasons for very real joy. Like so many shopping bags, though, it can be hard to carry it all at once. But we can do it – we are called to do it – together. God doesn’t ask us to set aside or to set aside or to move on from our grief in order to hold onto all the other stuff, too. God gives us Jesus whose coming reminds that we can move forward with it, with hope for something more to come.

I like how Nora McInerny talks about how she catches herself referring to her deceased husband in the present-tense at times; how she used to feel guilty or, at least, self-conscious about that – until she noticed that everybody does it. And how she realized that that’s because the loved-ones we’ve lost – or whatever struggles and sadnesses shape us, in this life – are very much a part of who we are and who we continue to be, as they should.

And it made me think of how often – especially at this time of the year, in these Advent days of waiting and hoping and longing for the coming of Christ’s birth – I like to refer to Jesus as “the one who was, and who is, and who is to come.” That phrase always reminds me about the nature of the God we’re waiting for in Jesus: a God who indeed was, and who is, and who, indeed, is to come.

Just like whatever grief we carry with us tonight was… and is… and is to come? So is Jesus.

Just like our struggles were and are and are yet to be … so is Jesus.

Just like our sadness, our brokenness, our loneliness; just like our fear, our loss, and our despair; just like all of it was and is and is to come … so is Jesus.

And God comes, in Jesus, not to deny it; not to make it easy at every turn; not to call us away from what grieves or hurts or scares us most. But Jesus comes to call us forward with it, so that it – and we – might be transformed by the grace of God; grace which always was and always is and is always on the way.

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.