Hopeful Repetition
I have always wondered why the psalmist repeats a line in Psalm 130: “My soul waits for the LORD / more than those who watch for the morning, / more than those who watch for the morning.” Sometimes I feel that those repeated words convey patience in the face of tedium. Other times I sense a spirit of encouragement within them. When the congregation recites or chants the psalm, the repetition can feel strange and profound—almost as if there may have been a misprint in the bulletin.
In their original context, the psalms were prayers to be uttered either by individuals or by a congregation, so we can imagine that the jarring peculiarity of that repeated line has been an element of worship for millennia. God is saying something to us through the repetition. There are hundreds of verses in the Bible that repeat a word or phrase for one reason or another. Sometimes lines are worth repeating, but sometimes we just need to hear something twice.
In your life, what are the things you hear over and over? Which ones stick with you? Which ones do you need to hear, and which ones are you tired of hearing? Parents, spouses, children, teachers, colleagues, friends, preachers, politicians—the people we see and hear week after week tend to repeat themselves. Do we notice? Are they stuck in a rut, or are we? How many times does someone need to remind us to turn off the light or pick up our socks before we remember? How many times do you need to say something for it to take hold in another person’s mind? In your own?
As someone who preaches regularly, I often feel like I say the same thing over and over. God loves you no matter what. Jesus lived and died and was raised from the dead in order that we might be set free from sin and death. God’s unconditional love and forgiveness challenge us to love and forgive unconditionally. Usually, when I write a sermon, I write what I need to hear, trusting that the Holy Spirit will help it be something that you need to hear, too. In this season of political division, pandemic anxiety, and economic uncertainty, I feel like I need to hear that familiar message of hope and transformation, and I need to hear it over and over again.
In one of her visions, the fourteenth-century mystic Julian of Norwich heard Jesus speak repeated words of comfort that still provide us with encouragement in our own troubling times. In the midst of a pandemic, she asked God to grant her the strange gift of a deadly illness so that, after her recovery, she might learn how to live more mindful of God’s abiding presence in her life. God, it seems, granted her the request, and she became so sick that last rites were administered. As she lay in that thin place between this life and the next, she saw fifteen “shewings” or revelations. In the thirteenth, God answered a question that had long plagued her heart and mind: “Often I wondrid whi by the gret forseyng wysdam of God the begynyng of synne was not lettid.” As Julian described it, Jesus informed her of all that she needed to know, saying, “Synne is behovabil, but al shal be wel, and al shal be wel, and al manner of thyng shal be wele.”
Sin, Jesus told her, is behovable—needful, fitting for God’s plan—but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well. The answer to Julian’s discontented longing about the brokenness of the world was not an explanation but a reassurance. The troubles we experience are impossible to reconcile with an all-loving, all-powerful God, but the unravelling of that paradox does not come with rational scrutiny but a gentle yet profound expression of faith. In the end, we believe that in God all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.
We cannot know what tomorrow will bring, but tomorrow has enough anxiety for itself. Our faith in God allows us to remain in the present moment because, in ways that we cannot anticipate, we know that God will be present in the next morning and in the morning after that. God reminds us of that over and over. What encouragement will you find in the repeated assurances that God offers us?
Yours Faithfully,
Evan