The Sounds of Silence

 

You have caused my companions to shun me; you have made me a horror to them.  --Psalm 88:8

My wife works with a woman who is very bitter toward God.  To be fair, this poor lady has dealt with more than her share of tragedy.  I believe she lost a set of twins at birth.  She had another son, but he was killed at age 21, just as he was getting started with his life and career.  She is divorced, abandoned by her husband because of her overwhelming grief.  My wife has tried to share the love of Jesus with her, but it is hard for her to hear.  She feels that God, whoever He is, has abandoned her.

Unfortunately, due to HR policies that prohibit talking about religion or other sensitive topics at work, my wife is not able to explain to this lady that God hears her cries.  He knows her loss.  He, too, lost a Son.  That Son died an agonizing death.  You think God's heart was not broken?  Yet is was through the death and resurrection of God's Son that we have hope of one day seeing our loved ones again, after their passing.  God's Son was raised after 3 days.  This lady's son will also be resurrected from the dead, either to life everlasting if his faith was in Jesus, or in eternal judgment.

Many of us may often feel abandoned or betrayed.  David wrote of those feelings in depth in Psalm 38.

O Lord, rebuke me not in Your anger, nor discipline me in Your wrath!  For Your arrows have sunk into me, and Your hand has come down on me.  There is no soundness in my flesh because of Your indignation; there is no health in my bones because of my sin.  For my iniquities have gone over my head; like a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me.  My wounds stink and fester because of my foolishness, I am utterly bowed down and prostrate; all the day I go about mourning.  For my sides are filled with burning, and there is no soundness in my flesh.  I am feeble and crushed; I groan because of the tumult of my heart.  O Lord, all my longing is before You; my sighing is not hidden from You.  My heart throbs; my strength fails me, and the light of my eyes--it has also gone from me.  My friends and companions stand aloof from my plague, and my nearest kin stand far off.  Those who seek my life lay their snares; those who seek my hurt speak of ruin and meditate treachery all day long.  But I am like a deaf man; I do not hear, like a mute man who does not open his mouth.  I have become like a man who does not hear, and in whose mouth are no rebukes.  But for You, O Lord, do I wait; it is You, O Lord my God, who will answer.  For I said, "Only let them not rejoice over me, who boast against me when my foot slips!"  For I am ready to fall, and my pain is ever before me.  I confess my iniquity; I am sorry for my sin.  But my foes are vigorous, they are mighty, and many are those who hate me wrongfully.  Those who render me evil for good accuse me because I follow after good.  Do not forsake me, O Lord!  O my God, be not far from me!  Make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation.

Psalm 38, along with Psalm 88 that kind of mirrors it in many ways, encapsulate the human condition.  We may be limited physically (38:3), or feel overwhelmed, like we are in over our heads (verse 4).  We may carry a burden around with us all the time, and feel like we are always on the verge of tears (verse 6).  We may feel like the whole world is against us (verse 11), or that those in power are setting a trap for us (verse 12).  We may want to defend ourselves, but our words are powerless or fall on deaf ears (verses 13 and 14).  We may feel outnumbered and outgunned (verse 19) when all we are every trying to do is just do the right thing (verse 20).

Who among us has not felt like this at one time or another.  Chad Bird, in The Christ Key, writes:

I first ventured into the bleak and midnight landscape of Psalm 88 when I was in the throes of a spiritual depression, when I thought that the Lord had truly forsaken me.  The petitions of this psalm  drip tears and bleed pain.  Ponder these words: "My life draws near to Sheol....I am ... like the slain that lie in the grave.... You have put me in the depths of the pit.... You have caused my companions to shun me.... O Lord, why do you cast my soul away?... I suffer your terrors...  Your wrath has swept over me....My companions have become darkness" (vv. 3, 5, 6, 8, 14-17, 18).  When I stumbled into Psalm 88, I knew I had found the thesaurus of a cruciform life.  Here were words that could only arise from a ravaged soul, one with whom I felt a kinship.

Again, the psalmist has captured the human condition in these verses.  But I want us to re-read these Psalms with Jesus in mind.  We are, after all, in the middle of a series of essays about seeing Jesus in the Old Testament, particularly in the Psalms.  And we are reminded as well that "we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin." 

Psalm 38:11 says, "My friends and companions stand aloof from my plague, and my nearest kin stand far off."  Similarly, Psalm 88:18 says, "You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me; my companions have become darkness."  We see this very thing in the various accounts of His crucifixion.  While He was being publicly executed for sins He had not committed, his friends stood afar off.  Matthew 27:55 says, "There were also many women there, looking on from a distance, who had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to him."  We also see this in Mark 15:40, "There were also women looking on from a distance, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome"; and again in Luke 23:49, "And all his acquaintances and the women who had followed him from Galilee stood at a distance watching these things."

I cannot look at the last part of Psalm 88:18 without thinking of Paul Simon's hit song, which begins "Hello darkness my old friend."  The song continues with this verse:  

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
No one dared
Disturb the sound of silence.

Jesus, suspended between heaven and earth, with His friends afar off and His Father turning a blind eye, saw the multitude wagging their heads and mocking Him.  "If You are the Christ, save Yourself!"  They shouted.  It must have seemed that silence was His only friend at that moment in time.  As He hung in agony, He must have longed for death, for release from the pain and shame.  Yet He knew this was their plan all along.

Psalm 38:12 says, "Those who seek my life lay their snares; those who seek my hurt speak of ruin and meditate treachery all day long."  In Matthew 22:15 we see, "Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle him in his words."  Mark 12:13 says "And they sent to him some of the Pharisees and some of the Herodians, to trap him in his talk";  and in Luke 20:20, "So they watched him and sent spies, who pretended to be sincere, that they might catch him in something he said, so as to deliver him up to the authority and jurisdiction of the governor."

Again, the words of Paul Simon:

"Fools" said I, "You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you"
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence.

Psalm 38:13 says, "But I am like a deaf man; I do not hear, like a mute man who does not open his mouth."  We see in Isaiah 53:7, "He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep before it shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth."  Jesus fulfilled these verses in His trial before the chief priest. Matthew 26:63 says, "But Jesus remained silent.  And the high priest said to him, 'I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God'."  The same thing is found in Mark 14:61, "But he remained silent and made no answer.  Again the high priest asked him, 'Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed'?"  Jesus also restrained Himself when he stood before the Roman proconsul Pilate.  John 19:9 says, "He [Pilate] entered his headquarters again and said to Jesus, 'Where are you from?' But Jesus gave him no answer."  1 Peter 2:23 says, "When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly."

Psalm 38:20 says, "Those who render me evil for good accuse me because I follow after good."  We can all relate to this, as we all have good intentions (well, most of the time anyway).  3 John 11 says, "Beloved, do not imitate evil but imitate good.  Whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God."

We cry out with David, who wrote in Psalm 38:21, "Do not forsake me, O Lord!  O my God, be not far from me!"  Yet we see in Matthew 27:45 and again in Mark 15:34, "And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, 'Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani'?" which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

Whenever we feel god-forsaken, we can look to Christ Jesus, who took on human flesh and walked among us.  Whenever our minds are centered on Him, we know that we are not truly forsaken by God, because Jesus was forsaken for us.  He took our sins upon Himself and became the perfect sacrifice for us, so that we can call God our Father.  "But for You, O Lord, do I wait," says Psalm 38:15.  "It is You, O Lord my God, who will answer."