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ON THE SILENCE OR HIDDENNESS OF GOD
by the Rev. Dr. Peter J.A. Cook.
I don't always find them useful but whoever wrote the "Sunday Readings" in the Living Church for this week (21 Pentecost) highlighted an important theme - "When God is Silent."
I have always found the idea of the silence or hiddenness of God fascinating. It is right up there with some of the great attributes of God. I am thinking of Karl Barth's discussion of "The Hiddenness of God" as one of the genuine Limitations to our Knowledge of God.
This week's Isaiah passage states: "your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you so that he does not hear." Elsewhere, Isaiah marvels: "Truly thou art a God who hides himself, O God of Israel!" Often, the Psalmist will beseech that God hide not his face from him.
Basically, the idea that God does hide himself speaks of the freedom of God. He is free to make himself fully present if his people truly seek him: "Seek ye the Lord, while he may be found." Yet he retains the freedom to hide himself, if it means he would have to come to his people in vengeance and with judgement.
From our standpoint, what possible benefit is there for us with that darkest of statements in Amos? "'Behold the days are coming,' says the Lord God, "when I will send a famine on the land; not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the Lord, but they shall not find it" (8:11f.) The only possible benefit is that God gives a last chance to come to one's senses, to see the absolute futility of a life lived apart from God, and finally to awaken with genuine yearning for him.
In commenting on this week's epistle reading from Hebrews, the Living Church writer also attributes the silence of God to the avoiding of a relationship with Christ that grows into maturity. If we are not willing for that relationship to reach a deeper maturity and to grow closer to Christ, then of necessity that relationship becomes more shallow and grows less close.
I like also the Living Church writer's likening the Gospel prayer of blind Bartimaeus to the famous Jesus prayer: "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me." It is one of the genuine prayers we can offer as we realize that we have abandoned God, but now genuinely beseech him once again to hear us.
---The Rev. Dr. Peter J.A. Cook, M.A., is rector of St. Michael & All Angels Episcopal Church in Lake Charles in the Diocese of Western Louisiana .
