When Silence is a Gift

From within the four walls of the waiting room, I hear it.  It’s loud.  Deafening, even.  I hear the silence, the sound of waiting.  My boy’s having surgery- just a minor out-patient, routine procedure- but it’s nerve-racking… this waiting and this silence. I look around and I see so many different stages of life represented, different cultures, different stories, different kinds of waiting.

Over and over again, I read about God’s silence and today I’m thinking about how His silence has played a role in my own faith walk, how I am responding to His silence even today. When I’m met with silence, I tend to feel rejected, like a failure who missed the mark… again.  So many times, fear bullies me and mocks me like some kind of cruel joke. But when I line up my life to the scripture that is God-breathed, I am refreshed and I breathe more freely. 

The weight of waiting diminishes and now, waiting seems like a precious gift instead.

One doctor emerges from the massive double doors.  He speaks in Spanish.  I can’t pick up too much, but I hear one phrase and it makes me want to cry.  “Mucho cancer.”  The doctor is gesturing; he’s trying to explain, pointing at his abdomen, and he keeps saying those words, again and again. I feel sick.  I don’t know these two men I’ve shared silence with; I have a feeling the patient is a woman.  Maybe she’s a mother or a sister or a daughter.  I’m not sure. Maybe she’s all of those things.

We wait some more.  Finally, Jake’s doctor walks down the hall and tells us he did great.  He’s in recovery, so we’ll wait some more. I am relieved, but my heart is still sinking for the family whose answer was so much different, so much more painful, and so much harder to swallow. And I think about how they are still waiting, too.  A new silence has crept over this family. 

When we arrived earlier, way before the sun was up, Jake noticed the statue right away.  I walked by it twice, once on the way in, a second time on the way to the elevator.  But up from the waiting area, he pointed out through the glass window.  “There, Mommy.  What’s that?”  And then I saw Him.  I leaned down and whispered low, "That's Jesus, buddy."  He grinned and chuckled, "Oh yeah," like it was so very ordinary that Jesus was here with us.

 

Jesus is standing in front of a woman and there, engraved in the stone I read, “Jesus, the Great Physician.”  The scripture etched beneath it is from Matthew- the same place I’ve been day after day after day. I’ve been getting to know this woman whose story has taught me about Jesus’ mercy.  I wonder if this is the same woman kneeling before Jesus.  This woman knows about waiting.  And she knows all about silence. And she knows all too well about needing the Great Physician.

This woman is a mother whose little girl is not only sick, but possessed by Satan and suffering terribly. She is desperate.  She probably wishes she could take her daughter’s place. But then, one day Jesus comes to her town, and she wastes no time asking for a miracle. But Jesus does not utter a word. If you’ve been there, desperate at the feet of Jesus stunned by His silence, take heart: the story does not end there. If God is silent, it is for our greater good and His greater glory.

This morning I read a different version of the same story- the New Living Version- and I saw it with fresh eyes: “Jesus gave her no reply.” Matthew 15:24 (emphasis added)

Could this holy silence be a treasured gift, given with the end in mind?

I noticed it first here in Matthew 15, but Genesis 15 holds another instance of God gifting His children with sacred silence. This time it’s Abram. He believes God will bless him with descendants as numerous as the stars, because after all, He’s promised.  But Abram, much like me, wants to be sure. 

Because sometimes the gap between believing and knowing is a cavernous, silent hole.

Abram asks God such an honest question: “How can I know?”  How many times has that one left my lips? And on its heels, another usually follows, “When will I know?” So God tells Abram to prepare an offering.  He is about to cut covenant with His chosen child.  But curiously, verse 11 leaves traces of that dreaded silence I’ve come to know.  After following God’s instructions to a tee, nothing happens.

“Then the birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away.” Genesis 15:11

Vultures indicate that the sacrifice is not immediately consumed, as before. In fact, it isn’t until darkness falls that Abram hears God’s response and it is from within a very deep sleep.  Then six long verses later, God Himself, represented by the smoking firepot and the burning torch, walks between the animal pieces that Abram prepared, finalizing His covenant, His precious promise.

Jesus was silent after hearing His good friend, Lazarus, was ill.  Instead of going to Bethany immediately, John 11:6 explains that Jesus stayed right where He was.  It confuses me, because the verse that precedes that one tells of Jesus’ great love for Lazarus’ sisters, Mary and Martha. 

This makes me wonder if the waiting, the silence, the no reply, was in fact a labor of love.

Jesus waited two days… He waited until Lazarus breathed his last breath, and then He showed up.  But God received immense glory when out of the tomb Lazarus walked, dressed in his grave clothes, for the crowd to see.  You see, His response was right on time.

There is perhaps an even more fascinating account of God’s silence, and this one is so hard to wrap my head around.  This one is found in John 19.  Jesus stands accused.  He’s been beaten… no, flogged. Brutally whipped over and over again, and then beaten some more.  Spit on. He’s been dressed in a crown of thorns and a purple robe, so they can mock Him. Before Pilate, Jesus offers silence.

“Jesus gave him no answer.” John 19:9

Another gift- the precursor to salvation that involved even more silence… the silence from the Father that made Jesus cry out from the cross where He hung, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” In every one of these instances of God’s silence, during the stone cold waiting, in the empty gaps full of wishing we knew; in the wondering where on earth God is, an answer eventually comes.  Because He is faithful.

The woman with the sick daughter eventually heard Jesus say, “Woman, you have great faith!” And her daughter was healed at that very moment.

Abram saw God walk through the flames and sign His covenant forever.

Mary, Martha, and the entire crowd of mourners heard Jesus say, “Lazarus, come out!” And he did!

And my salvation is secured, because Jesus uttered these precious words given to Him by the Father as He paid the ultimate price for me to be called His child: “It is finished.”

And after three long days of nothing but a deep heaviness as those who loved Him mourned this unfathomable loss, Jesus conquered sin and death forever when He rose from that very grave.

The answer always follows the silence and each soul is better off because of the answer that eventually comes and God’s glory shines brighter through it.  So when you sense God’s silence, an answer delayed, or when the waiting gets really challenging and the gap grows wider by the day, remember He is faithful.  He knows how the story ends. And it ends in victory if you are His.

Let Jesus write your story… the beautiful beginning where you realize you belong to Him, the precious pauses that are gifts of love, and all the parts in between that bring glory to His Great Name.

For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false.
Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay. Habakkuk 2:3