O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence?. . .There is no one who calls on your name, or attempts to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity. Yet, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter, we are all the work of your hand.
Iasaiah 64:1-9a
I think this cry from Isaiah is a cry that we can all understand. It is a cry of longing. It is the cry of a man who desperately wants God to break into his world and to change the world as he knows in some kind of dramatic extraordinary way. I think to be human is to know this kind of longing for God to act. To be human is to desire God to break into this world and to do something about our own pain and suffering and the pain and suffering we see around us in the world.
I once sat with a woman after her young daughter had just died after struggling with cancer for two long years. This woman turned to me and said, “Where is God? Why didn’t God do something? How could God let a little baby die? Where is my miracle? Where is my baby’s miracle?” We may not be faced with the incredible loss that this woman faced, but we will ask the same questions. We will cry out to God at some point in our lives in this same way.
Several years ago while I was teaching a confirmation class a young man asked me why God no longer did miracles the way He did in Biblical times. I answered him that I do think God still creates miracles, but they are rare and often not dramatic, and that indeed miracles were rare in Biblical times too. If you look at the Bible as a whole, there are far more stories of people crying out to God in pain and despair wondering at God’s apparent absence than there are stories of amazing miracles. The Bible is full of prayers like this one from Isaiah that we heard this morning to Jesus crying out from the cross, “My God, My God why have you forsaken me?”
I once sat with a woman after her young daughter had just died after struggling with cancer for two long years. This woman turned to me and said, “Where is God? Why didn’t God do something? How could God let a little baby die? Where is my miracle? Where is my baby’s miracle?” We may not be faced with the incredible loss that this woman faced, but we will ask the same questions. We will cry out to God at some point in our lives in this same way.
Several years ago while I was teaching a confirmation class a young man asked me why God no longer did miracles the way He did in Biblical times. I answered him that I do think God still creates miracles, but they are rare and often not dramatic, and that indeed miracles were rare in Biblical times too. If you look at the Bible as a whole, there are far more stories of people crying out to God in pain and despair wondering at God’s apparent absence than there are stories of amazing miracles. The Bible is full of prayers like this one from Isaiah that we heard this morning to Jesus crying out from the cross, “My God, My God why have you forsaken me?”
There is certainly a part of me that wishes God would step in from time to time and tear open the heavens and shake the mountains. When I see children suffering from hunger, neglect or illness I hear myself crying out, “God, why? Do something please!” When I am sitting with someone who has just suffered a tragic loss, I cry out “God, where are you?” When I watch the news and I see people killing people in the name of religion, thousands dying from diseases such as Ebola, or people hungry and without homes while others have billions of dollars, I plead, “God, please come into this world and fix this mess. Please send Jesus back and heal all our brokenness.”
It would be so much easier if I could just see God taking some action in this world. It would be so much easier if God would just take definitive action and make definitive statements—no more shades of gray and difficult decisions and questions! But in my experience, shaking mountains are usually caused by shifting tectonic plates, and not by the hand of God. Blinding flashes of light are usually simply lightening and not God tearing open the heavens. The God I know, the God I am familiar with, more often than not speaks in a small still whisper. More often than not my experience is the experience the prophet Elijah had of God as described in 1 Kings 19:11-13:
It would be so much easier if I could just see God taking some action in this world. It would be so much easier if God would just take definitive action and make definitive statements—no more shades of gray and difficult decisions and questions! But in my experience, shaking mountains are usually caused by shifting tectonic plates, and not by the hand of God. Blinding flashes of light are usually simply lightening and not God tearing open the heavens. The God I know, the God I am familiar with, more often than not speaks in a small still whisper. More often than not my experience is the experience the prophet Elijah had of God as described in 1 Kings 19:11-13:
He said, ‘Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.’ 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. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’
God is not in the wind or the earthquake or the fire. God is in the sound of sheer silence.
Now this is not to say that some people have not had dramatic and very real experiences of God’s presence. Look at the apostle Paul’s experience. As Luke describes Paul’s conversion experience, it was full of blinding light and loud voices from heaven. However, though Paul heard God’s voice clearly, those who were with him heard nothing. Even if you have had a dramatic experience of God, it might not be so evident to those around you.
Whether we like it or not, God just doesn’t seem to be into the grand gesture, and most of God’s activity in the world can be explained by those not attuned to it in entirely different ways. Whether we like it or not, God usually speaks to us out of the silence. God usually speaks in a still small voice. And in order to hear this voice we have to actually listen. We have to train ourselves to tune out all the noise of the world and to enter the sheer silence. It is only then that God’s still small voice can be heard by us.
Now this is not to say that some people have not had dramatic and very real experiences of God’s presence. Look at the apostle Paul’s experience. As Luke describes Paul’s conversion experience, it was full of blinding light and loud voices from heaven. However, though Paul heard God’s voice clearly, those who were with him heard nothing. Even if you have had a dramatic experience of God, it might not be so evident to those around you.
Whether we like it or not, God just doesn’t seem to be into the grand gesture, and most of God’s activity in the world can be explained by those not attuned to it in entirely different ways. Whether we like it or not, God usually speaks to us out of the silence. God usually speaks in a still small voice. And in order to hear this voice we have to actually listen. We have to train ourselves to tune out all the noise of the world and to enter the sheer silence. It is only then that God’s still small voice can be heard by us.
It always makes me think of my first day of Greek in seminary. When I opened my text book for the first time, I thought, “how on earth am I ever going to read this stuff, it looks like a bunch of gibberish, I don’t even know the alphabet.” Actually I remember thinking, “It’s all Greek to me.” My brain often makes bad jokes. But of course by the end of a year of work and study, I could read the text book from cover to cover. Now of course, 15 years later, after little practice and study, I can’t really read it anymore. But for a time and with hard work I could. I think it is the same with hearing God’s voice and discerning the movement of the Holy Spirit. Unless you are regularly spending time studying scripture, establishing a rhythm of prayer in your life and embracing the sheer silence you probably won’t hear or recognize the voice of God when it comes to you. And this learning is a life-long effort. I didn’t learn Greek in a day and I don’t know it anymore because I haven’t spent time with it in a long time.
But you may be thinking, why does it have to be such hard work though? Why doesn’t God make this relationship with Him thing a whole easier. Surely God has the power to break open the heavens, shake the mountains and simply tell us what to do. But see, I think God knows if He used his power in this way, it wouldn’t really be a relationship. God does not want to scare us or beat us into being in relationship with Him. God has given us free will, and wants us to choose to be in relationship with Him. After all, isn’t this what love is? To quote Paul in his first letter to the church in Corinth: “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way” (1 Corinthians 13:4). God does not seem to be interested in controlling or dominating us. God loves us and hopes for our love in return.
So, I see this Advent as an opportunity for all of us to find some time each and every day to tune out the noise of the world, spend some time in prayer and reading Scripture and embrace the sheer silence. May you know the sheer silence in which God is present this Advent Season.
So, I see this Advent as an opportunity for all of us to find some time each and every day to tune out the noise of the world, spend some time in prayer and reading Scripture and embrace the sheer silence. May you know the sheer silence in which God is present this Advent Season.