The Voice of God’s Silence

Luke ix. 36 v. “And when the voice was past, Jesus was found alone.”

There is a revelation in the silence. There are times when the voice of God dies upon the height, and there is no testimony from the mountain. We call, but it answers not; we question, but there is no reply. Yet there is a substitute; the voice of God is followed by the form of man. I come down from the Divine speculation to the human sympathy. God hides himself that I may see my brother. It is a glorious descent. On the top of the mountain earth seems very small. Its crosses dwindle in the light of eternity. I am in danger of becoming unsympathetic to common pain. The cries of the weary are lost in the songs of the redeemed. Therefore, betimes my Father comes to me in a chariot of silence. He veils Himself from my sight. He shuts the doors of the upper sanctuary. He throws a cloud over the former glorv. He forces me to look down instead of up. He leads me from the crown to the cross — from the opened heaven to the imprisoned earth. He shows me Jesus alone — without His retinue, without His pomp, without His kingdom — sinking with pale visage under the weight of human woe. The silence of God reveals Man.

Thou who art beating in vain against the problems of eternity, turn aside and be free. God’s silence is a voice. It forbids thee to stand gazing up into heaven. It tells thee that life is not ripe for the tabernacle on the hill. It calls thee back from the mountain to the plain — from the Divine search to the human pity. It puts the veil of Moses on thy nice; it teaches thee meekness by the absence of vision. Obey the silence of God. Go down to the Son of Man amid the darkened heavens. Go down to watch with Him in His hour of humiliation. Go down to accompany Him in the agony of man for man. There shall be no loss to thee in the stilling of the Father’s voice, if only thereby thou shalt find “Jesus alone.”