The awkward silence
How do you find sitting in the waiting room? Is it an awkward, uncomfortable silence? The faces, bored, nervous, anxious. All sharing one feeling – waiting is a waste. A culture in a constant rush controls us; productivity needs activity; waiting is doing nothing. Silence is meaningless. Not in Revelation 8:1: “When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.” Silence is heavenly.
The Bible records God’s words and deeds, but the silences and the long waits in between when nothing seems to be happening are everywhere. Silence between the seals in heaven being opened means silence between the outworking of God’s plan on earth. 1 Samuel 3 verse 1 says, “in those days the word of the Lord was rare”. God speaks when he needs to – not a word is wasted.
The long silence
Our Bible heroes endured very long silences:
25 years before Isaac was born to Abraham and Sarah.
15 years from David’s anointing to taking the throne.
In John chapter 6 the disciples rowed for several hours before Jesus came to rescue them.
10 days between the promise of the Spirit and Pentecost.
2 years ‘on remand’ for Paul waiting for a trial, waiting to get back on the evangelism trail.
The Easter silence
What was the first Easter Saturday like? Grief, confusion, the shattered dreams of ‘we had hoped’ (Luke 24:21). Not even an expectation that Jesus would rise as he had predicted. A silent waiting. A fearful waiting. One big question, but no big answer yet.
But then the silence ended. The news broke. Jesus appeared. He appeared many times. He instructed his disciples, but in between – silence. Time to think, to pray, to ponder what they had already heard and to learn that they weren’t in control of this process.
The silence was not meaningless. Unlike Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot, where the two tramps endure an increasingly absurd existence as they wait for a mysterious figure called Godot who never speaks or appears. We have a better promise. God has already spoken, already revealed himself, and we know his work is not yet finished.
Waiting in silence
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God’s silences and delays are for faithful waiting. Jesus said in John 5:17, “My Father is always working and I too am working”. The Psalmist reminds us that, “he that keeps Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps” (Psalm 121:3). Most of God’s activity is hidden, but lack of obvious growth or advance is no more a sign of his absence than winter is a sign that there will be no spring.
In fact the whole Christian story is one of waiting. Returning to the book of Revelation, a recurring theme is the patient endurance of the saints. The whole church’s life on earth is waiting - worshipping, working, witnessing, but also ‘waiting for the blessed hope, the glorious re-appearing of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ’ (Titus 2:13). We are waiting for redemption to be complete.
God’s sovereign silence
Waiting on God is not doing nothing. It is a work of faith. It is normal Christian experience, trusting God not only for what he does, but when he does it. He really is sovereign. Things are not as they seem. If we don’t see that in the Bible, we see nothing at all. Believing in God, not fate, we have an active faith-filled waiting. The Israelites walked round Jericho for a week - a work of worship, witness and waiting – trusting God for the moment of his mighty action (Joshua 6:14).
If waiting in silence is in fact a permanent, ongoing aspect of this life of faith, not an interruption, but the patient endurance called for in the Book of Revelation, it is a reminder that God is always at work and we are never in control. The chief end of all things is that God gets the glory. We don’t build the kingdom, we are not in charge now, nor ever. Silently waiting keeps God and us in our respective proper places. God is getting us to the place where he can actually bless us. At the end of waiting in Scripture come mighty actions of God – when the people are ready and the time is right.
Experiencing our silent moment
And so inevitably to our experience of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Has God revealed what his multi-dimensional purposes are in the pandemic? No. But this slowed-down time of silence is not meaningless. This world is in an absolutely shocking mess and we, as the church, cannot change it. It’s out of our control in every way. Is God through this time of waiting, when all normal church activities have ceased, trying to get us to that place where we really are trusting him for the harvest?
Famous missionary pioneer to China, Hudson Taylor, adopted the motto, “to move man, through God, by prayer alone.” When the missionaries were expelled from China in 1949 and all went silent did the church die? No it grew exponentially and China today has more believers than any nation on earth. In our frenetic church life, is God wanting us to get back to the right place – on our knees in the throne room, the centre of all power, waiting on him to work? Are we learning that the kingdom, the power and the glory is his and is displayed in his time?
Perhaps instead of spending our time giving or receiving running commentary on Covid-19, we need to go deeper into the Word God has already spoken? Like Habakkuk, going to the watchtower and staying there until God speaks to us (Habakkuk 2:1).
Shaped by silence
In our silence, let’s pray, “Lord, increase our faith while we wait”. Let’s praise God that fruit is growing beneath the ground before the shoots appear above it. That the flow of life and power from the Spirit has not ceased and will not cease until the church is built.
May the Lord use this period to prune away the unfruitful branches of church life and work. Use it to strengthen our dependence on him. Help us to realise we are in his hands – at all times – we are never, ever, in control of outcomes. This has always been the reality, we just see it more clearly now. We need to learn to walk in step with an all-wise, sovereign and gracious God.
This is the God we serve. He has spoken in Jesus. One day when Jesus returns, everything will be revealed. Now it’s silence and waiting, but when the silence is especially uncomfortable let us go down deeper and deeper into that trust out of which all true work and witness flows. Standing still we will see the salvation of the Lord (Exodus 14:13).
Rev David Cupples is minister of Enniskillen congregation.