Sunday, March 23—Day 19

Silently Bearing the Sin of the World
Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth; like a lamb that is led to slaughter, and like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, so He did not open His mouth.
Isaiah 53: 4-7
 

Of Silence, Suffering and the Savior
Injustice demands protest, shouts and cries. What else would one do when suffering harm or punishment one did not deserve? And of course, this makes the words of Isaiah 53:7 so remarkable:

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 that before its shearers is silent,

So he opened not his mouth.

I read this text and thought, “How could Jesus remain silent in the face of such outrageous injustice?” It did not just amaze me; it angered me. Why not speak up, if not for his own sake, at least for the sake of justice?

But of course, Jesus’ silence was not an ordinary silence. It was a silent, personal acceptance of his calling — an acceptance worked out with tears of anguish and drops of blood in the garden. It was not an easy silence. His was also a silence of respectful affirmation for the authority of Scripture. He saw these events in light of his personal calling from the Father, but also as the fulfillment of the prophetic voices recorded in the scriptures. Scriptures that he himself said had to be fulfilled down to the last jot and tittle. It was not an unreflective silence. And his was also a silence of self-determination.

The Gospel accounts of his trial overflow with angry people shouting angry things, and violent people doing violent things, and deceitful people doing deceitful things. Jesus’ silence is so out of place. It is loud! In the midst of all this shouting, Jesus demands attention by remaining silent. His silence unnerves the chief priests and disturbs Pilate more profoundly than any words. Jesus’ silence was a silence of eloquence and moral courage.

Being preoccupied with silence, I was startled by The Crowning. It brought me face to face with something more disturbing that Jesus’ silence: Jesus’ suffering. In this case, not cross, but the thorns; the senseless, mocking, crowning thorns. The gratuitous pain of uncontrolled soldiers lapsing into sadism, and drawing pleasure from the twisted work of their twisted crown. Why a crown of thorns?!

But more unnerving yet were the hands. So many, many hands. They couldn’t belong to just one person. Indeed, any reader of the Gospel accounts feels the many hands grabbing at Jesus during the trial. Like the Levitical image of laying hands on an animal before it is sacrificed, so many hands are laying hold of Jesus: betraying hands of Judas, denying hands of Peter, the angry hands of religious authorities, the dissembling hands of Pilate, the mean and mocking hands of soldiers, the mercenary hands of the false witnesses, the complicit hands of the crowd, and the cowardly hands of fleeing disciples.

So many, many, hands. And none of them clean — despite the protests of Pilate, none of them clean.

Perhaps a good Lenten exercise would be to contemplate this picture and ask, which hand is mine? The hand of denial — has my witness been silenced by cowardice? The hand of deceit — have I lied for gain or to save face? The hand of dissemblers — have I played with the truth and made a patchwork camouflage of half-truths to cover my failings and vices?

And once we have seen our own hands grasping thorns, we see our Savior. Imagine the hands that grasped the thorns, reaching out instead to touch the side of the Savior. Imagine reaching out, tentatively at first, to the flesh of gracious sacrifice. Imagine touching — and then feeling healing and grace instead of judgment and condemnation. Imagine a wound that heals your stripes. Imagine yourself drawn in close embraced by the Silent Sufferer.

Prayer
Lord, thank-you for silent suffering that brings our hidden sins to light, and the harms of sin to naught, and that turns the hurts of sin to joy. We praise you for freely given costly grace! Amen.
Rick Langer, Professor of Biblical and Theological Studies