Ruminations on the Silence of God

Well, after 32 years, here it is… My first day of being officially unemployed. It is also our last day in Israel, and Ginger and I are the final remnant of the tour. We have the delicious decision to make: Of all the places we seen or not seen, of all the places within our reach, which do we wish to revisit? Or do we want to be lazy and rest up? We decide to see one place we have missed, the Pool of Bethesda, and to revisit a good thinking spot, Gethsemane. But one unexpected adventure awaits… in the lobby of our own hotel.

As we sallied forth, this happy group was starting an impromptu celebration in the lobby of our hotel. Some American Jews had come to pass their bar mitsva and the shofar playing, drumming, musicians held forth as people danced, even passersby.

A last day in Old Jerusalem. Everywhere you look there are photographs waiting to be taken. 

We traveled to the Lion Gate of the city (the gate near which Steven was stoned) and found the massive ruins surrounding where the Pool of Bethesda was. See how small I am in this picture.

Another view lets you try to envision how lovely the place was in the past.

A working church nearby commemorates the birthplace of Mary.

Walking on to the traditional site for Gethsemane we see one of the most comprehensive collection of “Don’t even think of doing this” signs we’ve seen. Notice the warning to Ty Pennington?

Within this small compound are olive trees which one sign says may have seen Jesus while another signs claims they are perhaps 900 years old. Hmm…

Plaques are mounted all over the Mount of Olives that encourage the internalizing of these Bible events. We wish we had photographed them all. Each contains a passage of Scripture and a short personalizing thought. This one seemed very relevant to us right now. It is a mindset we wish to maintain.

Inside the church is an exposed rock that supposedly marks the rock where Jesus prayed here in Gethsemane… not like the one in the well-known painting. An Indian group was conducting a lengthy service there so we sat in the coolness of the church and waited.

The church was very beautiful, made to feel like that starry night.

Even the ceiling played along.

The floor sported a costly mosaic.

And Ginger caught this Indian boy in the back of the church playing in the holy water.

We left the church to stroll the grounds. This should be a day of gentle farewells to this city that has been our home for a week. But what is weighing on my mind is the silence of God. He is silent about the profanity in some of the T-shirt shops, about the violence that occasionally erupts in this land. God was silent throughout the Holocaust. Fathers stood in the shooting pits with their sons as bullets tore the “Sh’ma Yisrael” from their lips. Many Jews trusted in God to miraculously intervene right up to the end. He didn’t. God was silent as the final holdouts on Masada killed their families and then themselves before the Romans could mistreat them. He was silent as Jesus called out to Him from the cross, and He has largely remained silent over the ensuing 2,000 years. That saddens me, yet it doesn’t make some other theory of origin more reasonable, and strangely it doesn’t extinguish my confidence in Him. Though I am more subdued today, His silence forces me to listen more closely. Didn’t Elijah have to do the same as he hungered for God’s voice?

The Still Small Voice can thunder when you wait for it. How often have stories been told “God proclaimed, ‘This is my Beloved Son. Listen to Him.’ But many said it was just thunder.” The Bible writers have been honest about the controversies surrounding some pivotal events. But the voice of the Son does thunder to those who listen. It began to rumble in the voice of the prophets who time and again prophesied doom and destruction because people had rejected pure religion which was to be honest in commerce and kind to the misfortunate. Micah 6:8 can’t be stated any more clearly.

So the prophets had been writing a long exclamation point throughout history and Jesus’ own life added the period at the end of it. He taught the same things: “He desires mercy more than sacrifice.” And Jesus was willing to sacrifice Himself to reveal that mercy. What more can God say? Isn’t it our turn to answer?

We thoughtfully wended our way back through Old Jerusalem the city that has been so hard on lovers. We passed through its cluttered markets. I bought three T-shirts for a tour member who had returned to the States and wished she had gotten the ones that read “Holy Rock Café.” I was happy to do that for her, and in the process I discovered a shirt for myself. It seemed a fitting summary of my long thoughts this morning.

The shirt I chose had a reproduction of the ancient mosaic depicting a basket of pita and fish. The mosaic is from the church in Tabgha where they claim Jesus fed the 5,000. We had been seeing the mosaic reproduced all over the place. I suppose if you’d collected them all there would have been well over 12 baskets of them.

What I like most about the shirt is that it says, “Love is like loaves and fishes; always too little until you start giving it away.” It reminds me of the Palestinian’s book titled “I Shall Not Hate” which, ironically, we bought at the memorial to Jewish suffering. Some store manager there understands the memorial. It is a reminder of all needless and tragic human suffering, Palestinian as well. Knowing what to do at those times is not easy. Dietrich Bonheoffer, the theologian who participated in an assassination plot against Hitler, reasoned that at times love requires us to kill; to do a horrible thing to put an end to horror. It was not an easy conclusion for him, and I hope never to be put in that place. I’m not sure how I would choose. In the Bible record we see times when our God of love also encountered human darkness so deep that He chose to end it. I also hope never to be in that kind of desperate darkness.

I have not been put in such extreme circumstances, but I have experienced times when it felt like there was no love left in my world. The loaves and fishes remind me that it is in precisely those times we must have the courage to extend grace to an enemy. If no one else has love we must release our own. While the story of the loaves and fishes shows the miracle of God’s creative power, the story of “Stone Soup” shows us the power of our generosity in unlocking the generosity of others. It is human nature to horde whatever is in short supply. But love horded feels like hatred or disdain. Love is like a guitar string that only produces music when it is stretched. Left protectively coiled in the heart it does nothing.

Perhaps our God, who is love, is staying silent so that we can begin to hear our own voice. What are we saying? If it is not mercy, we are edging us closer to that desperate darkness.

Well, on our last day in Jerusalem we discovered a new delight… mint lemonade. We’ll be making that at home for a while.

I think the heat of summer in Israel lends itself to many frosty drinks. We’ll see what happens when we step on the scales back home. I think I mentioned how many cheeses I have been eating every morning in our hotel’s astounding breakfast buffet. We’re hoping that our miles of walking each day will counteract the deficits of daily dining on delicacies.

It’s a regretful “so long” as we leave for the last time the gates of the city.

Not to worry. Our hotel also has a gift shop in which to play with merchandise. This is “Uncle Fez-ster.”

Some hats are just too tight!

Ginger has bought virtually no souvenirs all trip. We’ve both been rather subdued in our purchases, but she has taken the award for “Most Frugal.” Here in our last hours she found her main keepsake, a Jerusalem cross made of opal. Very pretty. It’s a fitting symbol, too. It is so artistically done and uses such precious gemstone that one can enjoy it without ever asking “What does the cross mean?” In the same way one can enjoy Jerusalem for its variety of cultures, sights, and flavors without ever asking “What happened here?” But when you do ask… and listen… entirely new worlds can open up to you even in the middle of silence. I suppose there are meanings around us all the time to which we are deaf.