Silent Night: the Gift of Quiet

Silent Night is one of my favorite Christmas hymns, perhaps because it’s usually accompanied by the warm glow of candlelight at the end of the Christmas Eve service.

But I don’t often attribute silence to Christmas. Christmas is a jolly, bubbly time filled with festive gatherings, shopping rampages, boisterous carols, and bouncing off the walls from one too many buckeye balls!

The word “silence” often comes with the connotation of loneliness, disappointment, and grief. Sometimes, it’s even used as punishment. (Were you the type of kid who was told,”Go sit in the corner until you are ready to say sorry!”?) 😉

But what if silence is a gift? A gift of love, even? A gift of love from our heavenly Father?

Consider this portion of the Christmas story with me, taken from the gospel of Luke:

Once when Zechariah’s division was on duty and he was serving as priest before God, ⁹ he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense.

¹¹ Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. ¹² When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. ¹³ But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John. ¹⁴ He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, ¹⁵ for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. ¹⁶ He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. ¹⁷ And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

¹⁸ Zechariah asked the angel, “How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years.”

¹⁹ The angel said to him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. ²⁰ And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time.”

– Luke 1: 1-9, 11-20 (NIV)

Imagine being told that your dream of becoming a parent was finally going to be fulfilled in a very miraculous way–only, you can’t audibly tell anyone, not even your spouse!

At first, God seems pretty harsh for silencing Zechariah after he asks a reasonable question. Especially when you consider Mary’s interaction with Gabriel in the following chapter:

God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, ²⁷ to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. ²⁸ The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”

²⁹ Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. ³⁰ But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. ³¹ You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. ³² He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, ³³ and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”

³⁴ “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”

³⁵ The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. ³⁶ Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. ³⁷ For no word from God will ever fail.”

³⁸ “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.

– Luke 1: 26b-38 (NIV)

Both Mary and Zechariah respond similarly to Gabriel’s messages to them. They express shock and fear, though they listen to his message before asking a logical follow-up question.

So why was Mary encouraged by Gabriel while Zechariah was reprimanded?

The Bible doesn’t explicitly tell us why, but there are a number of reasonable guesses. God knew Mary would have to overcome more obstacles by becoming Jesus’ mother than Zechariah would by becoming John the Baptist’s father, particularly due to how she would be ridiculed as a pregnant unmarried woman. Perhaps this was an act of God’s grace.

But I suspect something even deeper.

God knows each of our hearts. Maybe He knew that Mary trusted Him even as she questioned how His will would be done, while Zechariah needed more of an opportunity to grow in his faith.

But does this mean God loved Mary more than Zechariah? Absolutely not.

Being the perfect Father, God loves each of His children equally. Out of His love, He uses unique approaches based on our God-given individuality to help us grow to become the people He created us to be.

While spending nine months in silence would’ve been challenging, it offered Zechariah the chance to focus on his relationship with God. After all, God was the only one who could hear him during that time.

There are many benefits to stepping back from the chaos of this season and taking a moment to be quiet with God. It allows you to:

• Hear God’s voice more clearly
• Enjoy the gift of God’s presence
• Refocus on what the season is truly all about
• Rest so that you are refreshed and ready for reentering society again

Sometimes we choose to embrace the quiet, but other times we are sent to the silent places. God is moving even when it seems like everything is still and stagnant around us. And He is with us even when we feel utterly alone.

The best part about being alone with God is experiencing His comfort. There have been many times in my life when I’ve felt incredibly lonely, and while I am thankful that those seasons didn’t last forever, I can’t recall another time when Jesus felt nearer.

We can trust that God knows what’s best for us because even in our hardest, darkest, loneliest seasons, He still offers us the gift of hope.

I pray that if you are in a season of quiet, you can accept what Jesus is teaching you while also trusting that this season won’t last forever. If you are feeling burned out or distracted by external things, consider intentionally taking the time to be quiet and reflect on the beautiful gift of Jesus’ love. ❤

 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.

– Romans 8:26-27 (NIV)