Written by T. M. Suffield |
Friday, December 23, 2022
How do we face up to the silence of God? Alain Emerson says we do so in prayer, as we learn to sit with God in the midst of pain. We learn this in Gethsemane, where Jesus asked for the cup to go from him and was answered, as best we know, with silence. This heavenly silence was the very centre of the purposes of the entire cosmos. Silence does not mean absence. Nor does it mean that we have been side-lined.

“Silence is violence,” we are told—to not speak on a particular issue is to perpetrate violence against those affected by it.
If that is true, how then do we cope with the silence of God? In the midst of our pain and our struggle, is his silence an act of violence against his people?
Perhaps you want to rush to say that God is not silent. We have his word in the Bible. He speaks through others and sometimes directly. You’re right, of course. Yet, for many, and so often for those suffering unspeakable tragedy, this is their experience. In the face of horror, in the face of despair, in the fact of death, we experience God as silent.
But silence is not violence. As Andy Crouch wrote in the wake of the Sandy Hook shootings, “there is no contradiction between silence and presence.” Silence can be presence. What did Job’s friends do well at? They sat with him in the ash heap for a week (Job 2) and were silent. It started to go wrong when they started to speak—not that speech is wrong, but they spoke wrongly. They were not absent, but they were silent. That was the right response to Job’s anguish.
Perhaps in God’s silence we can encounter his presence. At Advent we face up to the silence of God. If we live the season rather than the end of the story from the beginning, then we do not know when God’s silence will end. Instead, we have a rumour, a hope, of his return. Then he comes in the surprising ‘silence’ of a newly born baby. Silence is part of learning to hope.
In our Advent days, as we live in the Between, what Auden called ‘The Time Being,’ we have a rumour of hope for the future. The Christ who was born and died and rose, the Christ who conquered Death—Jesus of Nazareth, King forever—is coming back. His rule will break in and the world will be burned with fire, before being reborn.
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Given the long-established nature of creedal confessions and the unlikelihood that they will ever prove to be in error, the church should consider these affirmations as true and commendable, offering wisdom for its contemporary theological formulations.

Over the course of the last several months, I’ve been engaging in a friendly dialogue about the proper posture that Christians should adopt toward the Holy Spirit. My conversation partner maintains that, whereas the third Person of the Trinity is fully and truly God, co-equal with the first Person and second Person, in no place does Scripture explicitly reveal a believer giving glory, honor, prayer, thanksgiving, and worship to the Holy Spirit. My friend’s conclusion is that, lacking such biblical warrant for an adoring posture in relationship to the Spirit, Christians should not worship and glorify him. Importantly, my friend posits that whereas the Spirit is entitled to such adoration, he foregoes it in favor of the other two divine Persons who, together with the third Person, have decided that glory should be directed toward them—the Father and the Son—and not toward the Holy Spirit.
Part of my discussion has been to refer to the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed[1] through which the Christian church has historically confessed its belief “in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets.” Not only does this creedal article affirm the full deity of the Spirit (who is called “the Lord” and who, as “Giver of Life,” is engaged in creation and recreation, both of which are divine activities), but it explicitly confesses that he, together with the Father and the Son, is revered. That is, the co-eminence of the third Person with the first Person and the second Person means that the praise, honor, adoration, thanksgiving, and glory that we direct to the Spirit does not differ in essence from those same activities directed toward the Father and the Son. My contention is that this affirmation of the Spirit’s worthiness of worship is an excellent summary of Scripture and, having passed the test of time without being overturned, should direct our posture toward the Holy Spirit today.
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Even before the pandemic, the stress levels in our country soared to record highs. Since COVID-19, it seems we need new indicators to measure the off-the-chart angst, rancor, and overall unsettledness weighing on so many. More than ever, people need plain and unadorned speech—compassion without pretension and assurance rather than arguments.

“Welcome to the Program; how are you feeling?” I asked the caller to my radio program for family caregivers.
“I’m blessed!” The caller answered me sweetly, and then her voice dramatically changed. ”But I’ve had it with my Mama!”
The caller detailed challenges caring for her mother and the ensuing resentment and frustration. We chatted for a while on the air, and I remember it as a good call, but I couldn’t forget her opening, “I’m blessed, but….”
Many Christians, unfortunately, often lapse into “God-talk,” and their vocabulary sounds more like a seminarian who exclusively uses the King James Bible. That caller represented one of those fluent in “God-talk,” and her call prompted me to direct future callers away from the “Christian-ese.” Whatever people struggle with, moving to a healthier place always involves having a real conversation without the affectations.
Another negative side effect of the God-talk is an unfortunate lack of awareness of how off-putting it is for those “outside the bubble.” It is hard to say whether the vernacular is a deliberate effort to sound more spiritual, but it often seems intentional.   Yet, is that necessary?
More than 100 physicians have treated my wife since her car accident in 1983, and we’ve always appreciated when doctors avoided condescension or talking over our heads. The most meaningful exchanges were when they spoke normally – even about complex and distressing things.
How is it different when talking about matters of the heart and faith?
I knew a young pastor who was affable, relaxed, and easy to converse with – until he stepped behind a pulpit. When he preached, he used this sonorous tone that affected his speech and distracted from his message. He left that church soon after, and I haven’t heard him preach in years, but I hope he sanded off the affectation. When a pastor talks like Jeff Foxworthy in person and Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones from the pulpit, people notice – and not in a good way.
Somewhere along the way, it seems many Christians started feeling that talking to someone about their faith (whether over coffee or from a pulpit) meant assuming an air of spirituality. Yet that kind of speech is dropped when talking about a favorite meal, movie, or event. When witnessing, do we sound scripted? When ministering to someone in distress, must we echo a Christian greeting card?
Worse still, do we adopt a religious tone to make gossiping more acceptable?
Growing up in the south, we had it down cold when speaking detrimentally about anyone. We could always soften the insult or gossip with one of the most familiar phrases in southern lingo, “…bless his heart.” Regardless of the accusation or slight, “bless his heart” makes anything more palatable.
“He kills puppies …bless his heart.”
As ridiculous as that sounds, how is it different from the God-talk assumed when wanting others to think better of us – or less of someone else?
Even before the pandemic, the stress levels in our country soared to record highs. Since COVID-19, it seems we need new indicators to measure the off-the-chart angst, rancor, and overall unsettledness weighing on so many. More than ever, people need plain and unadorned speech—compassion without pretension and assurance rather than arguments.
In college many years ago, I met a couple who went to the mission field as Bible translators. Their work inspires me, and the model they use seems to represent a path for all of us. “Embrace people and understand their ways, culture, and history. Share the Gospel in a way that makes sense to them – and one day, when fluent in their language, translate the Scriptures.”
Embrace, understand, share, translate. Those four steps – in that order – represent a practical path for communicating to people in whatever circumstances. Embracing requires no “God talk” or affectation, but it does require humility. More than just observing, understanding also means appreciating the circumstances of others. Sharing and translating allow us to communicate for the benefit of others rather than elevating ourselves.
When looking at the life of Christ, that’s what He did (and does) for us – and the model hardly needs embellishing.
“…just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28).
Peter Rosenberger hosts the nationally syndicated radio program, Hope for the Caregiver. 
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