Silence

Personal Matters

I have been going through one of my restless periods lately. Some of the things God has shown me over the years, as far back as two decades, have only come to pass in marginal ways, at best. Additionally, it is sometimes very difficult to “get a lock” on exactly what God is doing in both my own life and the broader situation of the kingdom of God in Australian culture. When this happens I find myself drifting towards emptiness and the edge of depression. I have been long taught however that things are never what they appear to be; a “secret and hidden wisdom of God” (1 Cor 2:7) lies buried beneath the apparent randomness of life. Access to these treasures of insight requires only stillness before the Lord (Col 2:3). In the modern world silence seems increasingly harder to come by; we are in the grip of a technologically driven tsunami of information. Far worse, the vibe of the average Protestant church service is completely alien to a climatic silence.

I must intentionally set myself into the silence in order to become aware of the Lord’s presence. Only then do I infallibly experience the wonders of his goodness, love and peace. This sort of discipline however does not come easily and can never be self-taught. What is at stake in the ritual of stillness is not the latest devotional technique, but a fuller understanding of the hidden ways of God.

Awesome

“Elijah was a man with a nature like ours” (James 5:17) who had seen many mighty miracles. Many of us would like the anointing of Elijah, but the stubbornness of Israel and her leaders drove the prophet to ask God to put him to death (1 Ki 19:4)! Of course the LORD refused this request and instead sent the man of God to Horeb, the holy mountain where God gave Israel his Law. Here Elijah encountered divine acts so powerful that the mountain itself was breaking apart (19:11-12), “but the LORD was not in the wind…in the earthquake…in the fire”. Rather, the Lord came to the prophet in “a thin silence”[1]. This unique expression seems to be saying that God spoke to Elijah inaudibly. It was a communicating presence beyond words that touched the deepest inner recesses of Elijah’s soul. God revealed himself to the prophet by first evacuating his mind of all the usual expectations of how the LORD “typically works” in power. A sobering lesson to all of us who think we know just how the kingdom of God should come in our day.

This message of an awesome divine holiness that breeds silence is echoed in other prophetic texts; “But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him.” (Hab 2:20); “Be silent before the Lord GOD; for the day of the LORD is near;” (Zeph 1:7); “Be silent, all flesh, before the Lord, for he has roused himself from his holy dwelling.” (Zech 2:13). And amidst the tumult of the raging and warring nations, “Be still and know that I am God.” (Ps 46:10). The most profound utterance of all comes on the cusp of God’s action to wipe the world clean of all that disturbs and destroys, “When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.” (Rev 8:1). We must go to the crucified Lamb to be taught about the depths of the silence of God.

Still the Cross

And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”” (Mark 15:34). If for the prophets the silence of God meant a deep anticipation of judgement on an evil world, for Jesus his “dark silence” means all anticipation that the Father will abolish the world’s evil has been removed. This is how Christ our redeemer “made intercession for transgressors” (Isa 53:12), this is where experienced his name “blotted out…of the book of life” on our behalf (Ex 32:32; Rev 20:5). Christ having absorbed and removed all the dark silences between God and humanity frees us from our fears of the quietness of God.

A Fatherly Stillness

God is now unqualifiedly our Father through Jesus Christ (Rom 8:16-17). His silences can never mean abandonment, disappointment or dismissal. The awesome silences of our Holy Father in the midst of a temple which is now the living organism of the Church and our redeemed bodies sound a call to a penetrating presence beyond the limitations of audible words (1 Cor 3:16; 6:19). This is an engagement with the depths of infinite love and grace acting at the beginning of a world created out of nothing, encountering the promises of a God who “calls into existence the things that do not exist” and who raises the dead (Gen 1:1; Rom 4:17).

Any silence which comes upon a believer in Jesus is for the deepening of the divine purpose of Christ likeness (Rom 8:28-30). The silence of God is an invitation to abide in the Lamb, and learn the lessons of the all sufficiency of his Father’s will and power. Only in the realm of “a thin silence” do we learn that apart from Jesus we can “do nothing” (John 15:5).

Conclusion

What then of the average Australian; ears glued to the smart phone, eyes adhered to the electronic screen, and if Christian, enthralled by the ceaseless beat of the music at Sunday church?  This is an understandable attempt to drown out the terrible sound of the nations in uproar and the endless news of natural disasters (Ps 2:1; Isa 13:4; Matt 24:6-7).  All of which signal the ultimate terror of a creation under the judgement of God (Rom 8:20)!

The tragic lack of silence in contemporary Christianity means we do not know “the depths of God” (1 Cor 2:10). If the people of God stopped still before the Lord they would become inwardly conscious of their fear of condemnation, but even more radically aware of a wonder far greater than the guilt of one’s own hearts (1 John 3:20). By sharing in the Lamb’s heavenly silence they would resonate that in Christ “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well” (Julian of Norwich). As the final authority has spoken, “For behold I make all things new.” (Rev 21:5).

In the flux of life, busy or slow, silence before the Lord has a unique ability to teach us that his love is unwavering and that he is with us “always, to the end of the age” (Matt 28:20; Heb 13:5). This testimony is more powerful than the noises which surround us. May we choose such quietness today.