The Cruelest Silence

Each week as I sit at my desk preparing to write, I seemingly stumble across an image, a headline, or a video that robs me of breath. So to the end of full disclosure I am wrenched and sickened by the photos coming out of Syria. Fathers are not supposed to bury their children. Families are not supposed to be forced to leave their homes. But then you read the gospels and you get a glimpse into the hurt, into the pain, but ultimately the hope that it won’t be like this forever. I mention this not to preface a treatise on immigration (although that may be needed) or to hide a political agenda behind a pastor’s blog (there’s enough of that). I write this simply to point to the One who brings order out of chaos and light out of darkness. The only one who can makes sense of the relentless groans of the world around us.

The Cruelest Silence…

Have you ever been scared of noise?
The sound of bullets flying aimlessly through your streets.
The sound of brakes screeching followed by shattered glass.
The sound of the door shutting behind your spouse as they walk out.

Have you ever been scared of silence?
The eery stillness after an episode of gunfire.
The anxious quiet after an accident.
The heart shattering hush of a broken marriage.

Noises scare us because we recognize them. We can immediately comprehend the impact and devastation a certain noise requires.

Silence is different. Silence scares us because of the unknown. We don’t know what is coming or what just hit us. We feel abandoned, alone, wrought with a bone crushing fear. That is what silence does to a soul. That is what silence does to us all.

Noise
Matthew 3 gives a vivid account of the baptism of Jesus. Jesus journeys to the Jordan river to be baptized by a flocculent John the Baptist. This is the one John had been talking about. With each immersion he cried out in expectation, “there is one coming after me who is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry.” And now face to face with the one who made him leap in his mother’s womb, he is asked to baptize the Son of God. John resists but does not prevail. And what happens next is the loudest noise the world has ever heard.

“This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

Words we long to hear. The noise we hope rings out when standing at the gates of Heaven.

But these words don’t come easy. They come at a price. For Jesus these words were followed by 40 days of wandering through the wilderness constantly bombarded by Satan’s temptations. But that’s not what we want. We want the “I am pleased with you my child” apart from consequence of being called to the ends of the earth.

The call to follow Jesus is dangerous…ask John! Taming the gospel to make it safe for the whole family deafens the noise that will echo throughout eternity.

Silence
If what we see in Matthew 3 is the loudest noise the world has ever heard, then Matthew 27 is the “silent-est” silence the world has ever heard.

Much has been written about the question Jesus asks just before exhaling for the last time. “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Was it doubt? Was it fear?

Fredrick Bruner notes in his commentary on Matthew that he could have died any way he wanted. He could have died triumphantly, victoriously exclaiming that he wasn’t going to stay dead long. But he didn’t. He went out with a question. Bruner continues, “He not only took on our flesh and blood but also our nervous systems.” Those feelings of silence. Those anxieties of noiselessness. He felt that.

He endured that for me, for you. He knew that one day I would be wrecked by a silent image. He knew that one day little children would wash up on the shores of an unknown land. He knew that the only way for the world to be made right meant that he had to endure the cruelest silence of all.

The silence of a father. The silence of His Father.

The beauty of the gospel is that the wake created by silence has been calmed. The forsakenness that we deserve has been experienced by someone else.

Whether it is the loudest noise or the silent-est silence, we hear proclaimed over us, “This is my son, this is my daughter, with whom I am well pleased.”