The Jesse Tree: Silence – How an Unwanted Discipline Meets our Deepest Need
Advent 2021 – The Jesse Tree
This is a series of reflections on daily readings designed for families during the season of Advent.
The doctor pointed to the round, blister like, sore on my vocal cords. “This is a polyp,” she said. “If you want to avoid having it surgically removed, you’ll need to keep absolutely silent for the next two weeks. No talking. And, definitely, no whispering.”
This was my first real encounter with silence. Growing up in a family full of singers, storytellers, and salesmen, the idea of fourteen days of silence filled me with dread. How would I work, connect with others, or even worship?
Silence was worse than I imagined… until it wasn’t.
Day Twenty-four – Silence: Zachariah
Zachariah’s introduction to silence is thrust upon him unexpectedly. As he performs his priestly duty, burning incense in the inner part of the temple during the hour of prayer, Zachariah encounters a vision that overwhelms and terrifies him. Standing at the right side of the altar is, the angel of the Lord. In the religious imagination of the Jewish first century angels were not winged humans in gentle white garb. They were mysterious and powerful beings most closely associated with divine justice. The angel of the Lord was said to go before the people when God delivered them out of the hands of Egypt, for example. Zachariah’s terror is justified.
The angel’s message is one of personal and cultural significance. Not only will Zachariah and Elizabeth have a son after years of childlessness, but their child will be a prophet. In fact, John will be more than a prophet, he will be the herald of the messiah. Zechariah couldn’t have imagined better news. Perhaps that why he doubts.
Zachariah doesn’t believe the Angel’s words and asks for a sign. In an interesting turn Zachariah becomes the sign he asks for, losing the ability to speak until the day his son is named. For more than nine months, Zachariah is silent.
Adjusting to silence is distressing. Our minds go from frustration to restlessness, from anger to boredom. Ordinary rhythms need to be reworked. Communication, assuming one isn’t fluent in a visual language like ASL, slows down considerably. It’s easy to feel alone. How maddening must it have been to have news that is urgent and important and to sit in forced silence?
Adapting to silence is hard, but if we are able to do it, few things are more beneficial. Over time silence teaches us to hold, examine, and contemplate our experience and thoughts. We discover how much of our need to talk is driven by the desire to be noticed, to have our way, to simply fill the space, rather than to genuinely connect. We learn to be present to God, to ourselves, and to others, in ways we couldn’t have imagined.
My first experience with silence didn’t make me as eloquent as Zachariah (Luke 1:67-79) but it did create a hunger for solitude and silence that continues almost 20 years later.
How might God be inviting you to silence in this (loud) season?