As a Baptist who pastored in Catholic New Orleans for a decade, I came away with an appreciation for Lent. I have never given up chocolate. But some years I have shortened my screen time. Most years I add a devotional practice—a special Bible study or focused prayer topic.
This year God shut all that down.
The first day of the 50 preceding Easter coincided with Valentine’s Day this year. That day I had a relatively minor outpatient procedure that promised a couple of weeks off my feet, out of the pulpit in my interim pastorate, and working from home. That short break soon turned into several weeks of complications and nasty reactions that eventually put me in the hospital, as too many doctors tried to deduce the cause and staged a series of scientific experiments.
On a spiritual level, my world shrank to silence.
I haven’t experienced that often, but it has happened before. As a pastor seeking direction for a congregation, and most notably during my wife’s cancer journey, there were times when God’s answers on a particular need seemed a long time coming. But, I may say, this was my first encounter with total silence.
Maybe it was the drugs. From Ash Wednesday to Good Friday, I felt God had dropped a small dome over me. No sound coming in, and as best I could tell, no prayer making it out. Huddled in this zone of silence, my vision was too blurry to read and I couldn’t form a cogent string of thoughts to direct Godward. I remember several days where my only movement was to sit by the window in the early hours, waiting for the nurse to dispense my next eligible dose and hoping the black sky would assume a tinge of gray. And whispering, “Lord, help me.”
I don’t want to expand this beyond proportion. I was only in the hospital a week. Concerned people visited, the medical community was diligent, and friends in several churches assured me of their prayers. But for a long while, God seemed distant. I was missing the usual sense of his engagement. As my “help me’s” settled back from the brass ceiling, the silence was deafening.
Some have called this the “heavens as brass” phenomenon. The term comes from God’s warning to the Hebrews that disobedience would disrupt their communication with him. “And thy heaven that is over thy head shall be brass, and the earth that is under thee shall be iron,” Yahweh said through Moses before the nation was to enter the promise land (Deut. 23:28 KJV).
Since then, the term has expanded to any period when God seems silent. Disobedience is not the only cause, more recent observers would point out.
There’s illness or some other impediment. I was keen enough to realize that the good friends who visited, the nurses who dropped by from other floors, and Christian caregivers who shared meds and faith were his way of speaking in the season when I couldn’t hear. Even in the zone of silence, the love of God is never in doubt.
A silent season will cultivate in us the desire to listen more carefully. In rattle and bang of earthquake and storm, Elijah did not hear from God. Not until the prophet himself grew quiet did God utter a still, small voice at the mouth of cave. “What are you doing here, Elijah?” takes deeper meaning when it’s the first thing you hear after an extended period of hearing nothing.
Silence has the effect of focusing our listening. Silence whets hunger in the heart for a fresh word from God. Silence stirs willingness to receive a word we might not have received before.
“You’re sick. Hush up and get well. Take better care of yourself.”
“You’re disobedient. Stop it and behave.”
“You’re running. Turn around and go back.”
“You’re impatient. Give me time. I’m working on it.”
These are all words from God we might not seek, but we need to hear.
On Good Friday, the season of silence ended. God lifted the brass dome. Back at church revisiting the words of Jesus from the Cross, I was reminded of the Son’s endurance of the Father’s silence—until Resurrection Morning, when all communication was restored.
Eric Reed is IBSA media editor.