Isaiah 11:6-10 — The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’ den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious.
A few days ago, perhaps not for the first time, I quoted from Robert Browning’s poem “Pippa Passes”:
God’s in His heaven—
All’s right with the world!
It’s a beautiful passage, and anyone who has walked out in the morning knows what is meant, as does anyone who perhaps has heard the skylark in the morning, celebrated by another fine poem — this time from Percy Bysshe Shelley:
Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from Heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.
This world, God’s creation can be staggeringly beautiful and satisfying. And yet … All is not right with the world. We are living in a damaged creation. It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out. We have war, disease, crime … We have forests being destroyed, lakes being polluted, species being driven to destruction … we have sexual immorality, abortion, adultery, divorce … It’s enough to make me despair.
And yet I am not in despair. I’m full of hope, even joy. In the Revelation of Divine Love, Julian if Norwich says:
And thus, in my folly, afore this time often I wondered why by the great foreseeing wisdom of God the beginning of sin was not letted: for then, methought, all should have been well. This stirring [of mind] was much to be forsaken, but nevertheless mourning and sorrow I made therefor, without reason and discretion.
But Jesus, who in this Vision informed me of all that is needful to me, answered by this word and said: It behoved that there should be sin; but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.
Why did God not prevent the fall? It was part of His plan. Granting free will inevitably meant there would be sin. Sin would damage creation … but God’s plan leads to the restoration beautifully described by Isaiah, when we will all rally around Jesus and “all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”