Suffering: The Silence of God

Winter in the Glacier Peak Wilderness at Tall Timber Ranch (Photo mine)

There is nothing like a winter’s silence, especially in the mountains.  You shoe or ski into a wilderness area.  A light snow is falling, only adding to the thick blanket of snow covering ground, shrubs, and trees.  You stop to listen.  You hear nothing but silence.  

Silence is never neutral.  We always bring something to it.  Exhaustion or depression or anxiety.  Deep concern for a child or friend.  Uncertainty about the future.  Contentment and gratitude.  Openness to God.

God is often silent, too, like a winter’s silence.  God’s silence is never neutral either.  During times of suffering God’s silence can torment us, becoming as cold as ice, as metallic as steel, as hard as granite.  We turn to God in need; we cry out to God in desperation; we ask God for help.

There’s no response but a terrible silence.

Psalms 13 gives voice to this anguish.

How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
    How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I bear pain in my soul,
    and have sorrow in my heart all day long?

The Psalmist speaks of a God who forgets, turns away, ignores him in his need, and fails to soothe his pain and sorrow.

It is a silence of absence, not presence.

We prefer noise to silence.  We expect God to make lots of noise, too.  The noise of answered prayer.  Miraculous intervention.  A voice from heaven.  Judgment of opponents.  We think to ourselves, “If I were God, I would make noise in that way!  I would answer such worthy prayers!”

I have prayed those kinds of prayers.  But God hasn’t always answered them.  God has often been silent.

Ruthlessly silent.

But silence can have a different character to it, more like the silence of a mother gently rocking a sick baby.  It is warm and comforting, a silence of presence, even though the baby continues to feel discomfort.

God’s silence can be like that—kind rather than cruel, soft instead of hard, sweet more than severe.

It depends, at least in part, on what we expect of God.

You are probably familiar with the stories of Elijah, the prophet.  My favorite is not the story of Elijah’s confrontation and defeat of the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel.  It is the one that follows.

Elijah has just witnessed a divine show of force that established Yahweh as the undisputed God of Israel, clearly superior to Baal.  One prophet of Israel has roundly embarrassed and defeated the 400 prophets of Baal.

But the furious Queen Jezebel swears that she will execute Elijah before the day ends.  So Elijah flees for his life, eventually arriving at Horeb, the “mountain of God.”  History reminds Elijah that this place is where God displays power, just as God did for Moses.  In that first instance God’s display of power was so great that Moses’ face was set aglow and the people of Israel cowered in fear.

That is the kind of epiphany we all want to see.  Lots of divine noise.

Elijah expects the same.  It is, after all, the mountain of God, which means God is supposed to act like a real God should.  Once on the mountain Elijah hides in a cave until God summons him, though Elijah still holds back, and understandably so.  The account then reads:

Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence.

Sheer silence.  God is present, but in a quiet way.  He doesn’t bother to solve any of Elijah’s problems, at least not yet.

What Elijah needed most, it appears, was not more noise but divine silence.

Wind, earthquake, and fire would have driven Elijah back into that cave.  Only silence could have—and, in fact, did—invite Elijah to come out of hiding and approach God.  But Elijah did not pick up the cue.  He chose to make all kinds of noise himself.  He complained to God.

Sometimes the best response to God’s silence, however, is more silence.

For God alone my soul waits in silence,
    for my hope is from him.
He alone is my rock and my salvation,
    my fortress; I shall not be shaken.
On God rests my deliverance and my honor;
    my mighty rock, my refuge is in God.

Silence creates space for relationship, even when no words are spoken, like the silence of a father driving a daughter home after her team lost the championship game.  Noise sometimes fails.  Silence is often enough.

Suffering raises questions about the presence—even the very existence—of God.  God makes no sense at all.  Everything in our experience tells us that God has betrayed and abandoned us.  God is silent.

But how we view and receive that silence depends upon our willingness to enter into it, choosing to be silent, too.  Not complain, though we have every right to.  Not question God or shake our fist at God, though we could.  Not flee or avoid or yield to distraction.

Who knows, our silence, however unnatural, might help us see that God is truly and mysteriously present, even in “sheer silence.”