Lenten Perspective: Stillness and Silence

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

Stillness and Silence

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.

1 Kings 19:11-12 (NRSV)

Can anybody hear me?

The silence is deafening

Why do You feel so far away?

When I know You're here with me

But I just need the faith to see

Nothing can separate me from Your love

From "Can Anybody Hear Me?" by Meredith Andrews

It was a dark time in the Northern Kingdom.  Ahab, the king, was the worst in a string corrupt rulers, and his consort Jezebel sought to eliminate all of the prophets of Israel's God and replace them with prophets of her false gods.¹  When the prophet Elijah entered the scene, he announced a drought which effectively demonstrated the ineffectiveness of the fertility gods the king and queen had been promoting.²

After spending nearly three years in hiding during the drought, Elijah returns and challenges Jezebel's false prophets to a showdown that ultimately results in their execution.³  When Jezebel hears what has happened, she swears by her gods to make sure that Elijah ends up just like one of them.  Elijah receives word that the queen wants him dead, and, fearing for his life, he flees into the wilderness.  Exhausted, he collapses under a tree and begs God to let him die.  In response, an angel brings him food so that he will have strength for the journey ahead of him.

Elijah spends forty days and forty nights in the wilderness, making his way toward Mt. Horeb, an important site in his people's history that is sometimes called the Mountain of God.  When he reaches his destination, he takes shelter in a cave, where God asks him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?"  It is one of those existential questions we all need to be asked once in a while.

Elijah spills his guts to God, saying, "I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword.  I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away."  Elijah feels that he is all alone in the world, and, as a wanted man, he is ready to give up.  Such is the life of a prophet.  Nowadays, people like to think of themselves as prophetic but often have no idea what the word really means.  Prophets speak hard truths that the privileged and the powerful do not want to hear, and they suffer dearly as a result.

Elijah learns that God will soon pass by the mountain.  First, there is a windstorm with gusts powerful enough to break rocks.  Next, there is an earthquake.  After that, there is a wildfire.  Finally, after the ravages of the elements, there is sheer silence.  Interestingly, God, we are told, is not in the wind, in the earthquake, or in the fire.  It is in the stillness and the silence that God speaks, asking once again, "What are you doing here, Elijah?"⁴

For some reason, I have a certain fondness for this particular Bible story.  There are times in my life when I wish that, like Elijah, I could run away, far from everything I find painful, scary, or threatening, and end up in a sacred place where I experience God in a profound way.

I think this story has something to teach us about the way we relate to God.  Often, when we want to hear from God, we look for wind, fire, and earthquakes, figuratively speaking.  We want explosions and special effects.  We want God to bring the noise, but what we need to remember is that God is at work in the silence.  God is not always at work in the spectacle, and the absence of any attention-grabbing "signs and wonders" does not mean that God is inactive or absent.

Late last year, I helped with a spiritual formation retreat.  As the retreat drew near, though I knew I would be busy the whole weekend, I began to hope that God would give me an epiphany of some sort, as others have received on such weekends.  I wanted something that would give me some clarity for my journey.  I received no such revelation.  That said, I should not interpret the lack of an epiphany as a sign that God has nothing to say to me or a sign that God is not already at work in my life in some way.

Elijah feels that he is the last man standing among those faithful to God.  He feels alone and overwhelmed, but God does not leave him in that state.  God gives Elijah some help, instructing him to appoint a man named Elisha as his disciple and ultimately his successor.  God also reassures him that he is not alone, for there are still seven thousand people in Israel who have not forsaken God.

The story of Elijah's encounter with God in the silence is a reminder to us that when God seems silent, God is not absent or inactive.  Maybe this story also offers us a challenge, especially in this season of repentance and introspection we call Lent.  Perhaps we need to stop waiting for God to hit us over the head with whatever revelation we seek and to instead take refuge in stillness and silence, away from the noise that is so pervasive in our lives, so that we may actually listen for God.


Notes:

1. 1 Kings 16:29-33, 1 Kings 18:4
2. 1 Kings 17:1
3. 1 Kings 18
4. The majority of this perspective is based on 1 Kings 19:1-18.  Quotations are taken from the NRSV.

The painting featured in this perspective was painted by Dieric Bouts in the 1460s.