The Silence That Speaks

Readings:
1 Kings 17:17-24
Galationas 1:11-24
Luke 7:11-17

Lay Preacher: Jan Veseth-Rogers

Today’s text from Luke recounts the story of Jesus’ reviving a widow’s only son. Jan picks up on a very interesting notion in this text, one that, in so doing showcases the Jesus described therein. I believe Jan saw something in this text that took some “looking”.

What is of import in the telling of this story. Is it that the woman is a widow, that the dead man is her only son? Perhaps, as Jan points out, it is not a story only about a widow or only about a son. Perhaps these are devices to introduce us to a much bigger picture, characters used to showcase Jesus’ actions. Perhaps it is not the circumstances that are altogether crucial, but how Jesus reacts to them.

Case in point. Jan points out several very deliberate actions on the part of Jesus that might otherwise go unnoted. As he approaches the town of Nain, the dead man is being carried out, surrounded by a large crowd.

The widow is one of many in that crowd. The widow doesn’t speak … BUT Jesus knows which one is the mother!

How?

Even though she does not speak to him or identify herself, He knows who she is. He feels her pain; he knows the mourning of a woman, alone, the look of a woman mourning the death of her only son … a mourning his own mother will, in time, know only all too well. He speaks to her. Yet he does not have to have her pointed out. He recognizes the face of pain, of longing, of loss.

And though that loss, that longing, that pain have no voice, He “hears” it and feels it as if it were His own.

Jan very eloquently and quietly struck me in a particular way on the morning of June 10th. She struck me as, in some sense, an ideal messenger for this sermon. I felt very oddly and strongly that this sermon could be given most powerfully by … a mother. Her lips pursed, her face had well-defined structure as she delivered the key that unlocked a message hidden in this story.

Jesus is here for those with no voice, the ordinary, those with seemingly no hope. He hears into their hearts and knows their innermost need.

Jesus hears into the silence and the silence speaks … for those that have the ears to hear. Jesus does. He gives voice to the voiceless; He hears in the silence our needs, our longing, our empty void … and He comes to fill that void with hope.

Not all heartaches are not to be named in words – but some remain so … out of fear, sin, out of confusion. These all take our voice away at critical defining moments in our lives. But, in those moments, we are never alone. There are ears to hear through the confusion, the denial, the pain, the loss, the longing, into our heart of hearts.

Declarations of faith are NOT always demanding.

Sometimes they are quiet moments, unspoken moments, when our fallibility as humans leaves us without a voice. As a man, not a mother, I fear I would not have recognized this woman. But Jesus did. Jan could relate on a more intimate level. Through her eyes, I was able to see more clearly what Jesus might have been intending for us to hear … a woman with no voice … for whom our Lord felt compassion.

He hears into the silence … and the silence speaks.