{"id":6594,"date":"2021-06-25T08:00:46","date_gmt":"2021-06-25T00:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/?p=6594"},"modified":"2021-08-03T05:27:19","modified_gmt":"2021-08-02T21:27:19","slug":"on-the-silence-of-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/?p=6594","title":{"rendered":"On the Silence of God"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cMy God, my God, why have you forsaken me?\u201d (Psalm 22:1; Mark 15:34).<\/strong><\/p>\n

——————————–<\/p>\n

The silence of God has always been a raw human problem in times of suffering.<\/p>\n

In the face of a compassionate and merciful but also just God, heartbreaking affliction of innocent people cannot be explained lightly. Just as Jesus\u2019 appalling suffering in the hands of his enemies represented senseless human suffering, his haunting cry from the cross uttered the lament of the innocent and suffering humanity against the silence of God: \u201cMy God, my God, why have you forsaken me?<\/em>\u201d How does Mark\u2019s Gospel help us understand God\u2019s silence as Jesus is unjustly subjected to excruciating suffering on the cross?<\/p>\n

From the opening words of the Gospel, Mark sets the stage for the readers to develop a holistic answer to God\u2019s silence. He announces his writing as Good<\/u><\/em> News, so that though the way may be hard, even God\u2019s silence at the height of Jesus\u2019 suffering is part of the news which is \u201cgood\u201d for humanity. For it is all about the Messiah<\/em>, the Son<\/em> of God, whose identity God personally guaranteed at the River Jordan, and for whom God\u2019s love is personally assured by God (1:11). This divine love is agape love – perfect, unconditional, sacrificial, pure, constant and faithful<\/em>. From the start, then, Mark as good as announces that come what may, t<\/em>he Father would never abandon the Son. <\/em>Indeed, when the Son first struggles with Satan in his wilderness temptation, the readers learn that the Father has His angels to minister to him (1:13). On his part, as he emerges from the wilderness, Jesus\u2019 heart is decisively set on the mission of preaching and living the kingdom of God (1:14). But, as the inaugurator of God\u2019s reign, Jesus\u2019 mission is also bound to meet with severe resistance in a world set on a different track. At the Transfiguration, as Jesus\u2019 ministry begins to move towards its climax in Jerusalem, God reiterates his Sonship. Mark is clear enough: God the Father would always be present<\/em>, particularly in the Son\u2019s suffering. Jesus was never abandoned by his Father, for he was continuously and unfailingly supported by God throughout his life, death and resurrection.<\/p>\n

Mark leaves ample pointers indicative that in silence, God speaks loudly. Calvary was not \u201cnothing but darkness\u201d, Jesus\u2019 violent death was not all negativities, and God was not absent throughout Jesus\u2019 ordeal and would not act at all[1]<\/a> – quite the contrary. Three points in particular, among others, must feature high on our choice of pointers: (i) Jesus\u2019 orientation to God; (ii) the necessity of messianic suffering; and (iii) a suffering God.<\/p>\n

First of all, God\u2019s silence creates space for Jesus\u2019 free exercise of his human <\/em>freedom<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

God respects human freedom<\/em> \u2013 that primary gift from God who made human beings in His image and likeness. To say that, is at the same time to assert that God is faithful to His creation. So first and foremost, God\u2019s silence speaks loudly about the immense respect God has for the exercise of human free will. The problem of course is that humanity has abused its freedom and has always been recalcitrant. Since the Fall, God\u2019s good creation had turned bad upon human abuse of freedom in disobeying the vision of God for human creatures (Gen 1-3). Instigated by the evil one, human beings have forgotten their creatureliness;[2]<\/a> rebellion against the reign and wishes of the Creator led to estrangement.[3]<\/a> Alienated from God, sinful humanity was destined to be death-bound and to die estranged from God, unless the sin-pattern in the world was interrupted, the original good creation restored, and a faithful life with God renewed. \u201cGod loved the world so much that He gave His Only Son\u201d (Jn 3:16) to show the world a different way to live, and to save it from this death-bound recalcitrant sin-behaviour. In freedom, Jesus considered what was worth dying for is the \u201cnew people\u201d as God\u2019s \u201cnew creation\u201d in God\u2019s kingdom.[4]<\/a> This required of the Son to at all costs freely and willingly orientate towards God in all things; he must love God and humanity perfectly, and to the end, with a love that will not let go. On His part, God has to yield space for the Son to do so. God\u2019s silence testified to his respect for Jesus\u2019 exercise of his free will to stay faithful to his mission.<\/p>\n

In His silence, then, God painfully watched the Son who, acting in service of God and humanity<\/em>, was on this painful exodus from the dreadful human pattern of sin and violence. And in that silent watch, God gave consent<\/em> (like \u201csilence means consent\u201d) to the Son who came into the world to do God\u2019s will (see Heb 10:5-7). God who loved us first, has given us the power to love. Love is self-giving, self-offering, self-sacrificing; self-emptying (kenotic)<\/em> (Phil 2:6-11). There is no love without suffering<\/em>. Pain is the price we pay for love<\/em>. Parents know that experientially. In His silence, God was saying yes to the logic of love<\/em> that wanted to save humanity and die for us even while we were yet sinners (Romans 5:8). God, in other words, said yes to the excruciating way of the cross<\/em> that in love Jesus walked. Silently, and painfully, God allowed Jesus\u2019 way of the cross to run its course<\/em>.\u00a0The Father and the Son are united in the knowledge that the best is only bought at the cost of great pain.<\/p>\n

God has accepted that for Jesus to interrupt humanity\u2019s death-bound sin-pattern, his struggle, however excruciating, must proceed without His mitigation. Both God and Christ must love to the very end<\/em>, however painful, however excruciating to keep silent. The Son must be allowed to do his work to the end, to suffer to the end, even in silence. For once, since the Adamic Fall, the reorientation of human freedom to God<\/em> did run its full course. The death of Jesus is that perfect reorientation of human freedom to God. Mark shows that Jesus was able to do it because he offered service to God and humanity by giving himself \u201cin his full humanity<\/em>,\u201d \u201cin sublime simplicity and uncalculating generosity<\/em>,\u201d and \u201cin utter freedom and unconditionally<\/em>,\u201d to the Father and fellow human beings. In doing so, he manifested the true identity, the true purpose in life, and the true security in life that sinning humanity has lost. Jesus thus became the expression in the world of God\u2019s \u201ccreative and redemptive Word,\u201d[5]<\/a> for by his death, we are recreated anew (2 Cor 5:17) \u2013 a new \u201cAdam\u201d (creature made of earth) is born. Death hurts. But the death of Jesus is also the door to a good new creation, a new beginning. God knew that death was not the end, even though darkness and nothingness<\/em> apparently prevailed all around at the height of Jesus\u2019 suffering. God knew that Jesus\u2019 Passion would launch a new life. God\u2019s tortured silence was in aid of that.<\/p>\n

This is where the thought and language of Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner is most helpful. He packs deep insight in linking the cross of Jesus as a true exercise of human freedom<\/em> to the crucial acceptance of God\u2019s vision for the world. God gives self-offering love to the world. There must be human openness and human response to this love. God\u2019s vision for humanity is a healthy relationship with God and others under the active principle of love so that His primary command is to love God and love neighbour constantly and in a perfect way. We are made with the freedom to accept God\u2019s love and to promote or neglect it in the world. The more we are open to God and the Gospel, the more human and free we become. To love entails making sacrifices, to carry one\u2019s cross. For the love of humanity, Jesus took it as his mission to offer that sin-interruption by freely sacrificing himself<\/em> on the cross. In the actual situation in which Jesus was in, that included a willing absorption of utter humiliation, extreme torture and death as an innocent man. The right way to accept the cross is to do so in peace and non-violence and to refuse to return violence with violence. Both Father and Son did just that. In doing so, the Markan Jesus tangibly shows humanity that the right exercise of human freedom, especially in situations of severe human suffering, always involves a struggle with the silent God. On his part, Jesus was determined to and has in principle turned the human sinful condition around, \u201cmaking a new beginning, restoring the image of God, paying the price or ransom in this metaphoric sense, in such a way that he is able to incorporate all human beings into his own stance of openness to God and others<\/em>.\u201d[6]<\/a><\/p>\n

The Gospel of Mark offers the vision of that irreversible point where the history of God\u2019s self-offering meets with its free acceptance in the world. Jesus stood precisely at that point. Jesus lived a human life so authentic and acceptable to God that God accepts the world to a point where Rahner says He can no longer let it go. In Jesus then, God is pleased to receive \u201cthat gift of creaturely freedom <\/em>in which this freedom of the world definitely accepts God\u2019s offering of Godself.\u201d This is the definitive contribution of Jesus the true man. He is the one person who, from the depth of his interiority, lived a human existence that signifies the definitive wishes of God to the world, and at the same time the assent of the world to this God. Jesus is the one who \u201csurrenders every inner-worldly future in death,\u201d and who is thereby \u201caccepted by God finally and definitively\u201d[7]<\/a>. His complete surrender of life to God reached fulfillment which became historically tangible precisely in the resurrection, where the silent God spoke loudly to the world by raising Jesus from the dead.<\/p>\n

Thus, secondly, the silence of God at Calvary reflects the \u201c<\/em>necessity\u201d of Jesus\u2019 suffering death<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

We can now answer the question \u201cDid Jesus have to suffer and die?\u201d affirmatively, just as the sacred texts insist repeatedly that the crucifixion had to be. Recall the reproach to the disciples on the road to Emmaus: \u201cWas it not necessary<\/em> that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?\u201d (Lk 24:26). Jesus\u2019 triple passion-predictions spoke in similar tones: The Son of man must<\/em> suffer torture, be killed, and after three days rise again (Mk 8:31; 9:31; 10:34). St Paul struck the same note of necessity: \u201cChrist died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures\u201d (1 Cor 15:3). So from the event of Calvary, the early Christians discerned much more than cruel killing and violent end to Jesus\u2019 life, but accepted as well that somehow in the divine plan of salvation<\/em> it needed to be so. A backward glance at the ancient scriptures convinced them that Jesus came to this world as the unwearied servant of humanity’s necessity. He \u201ctook our infirmities, and bore our sicknesses\u201d (Isaiah 53:4) that he might minister to humanity in dire needs. It was his mission to bring to humanity complete restoration, paying the ultimate price of a humiliating and painful death.<\/p>\n

Early Christians thus saw two factors at work at Calvary: first<\/em>, human malice made Jesus\u2019 suffering and death inevitable; second<\/em>, Jesus\u2019 own unswerving fidelity to his mission and the service of others inevitably brought him into conflict with the ruling classes, a conflict he was humanly bound to lose. Calvary became the inevitable consequence of a commitment which he refused to abandon even at the cost of his life.[8]<\/a> In this regard, God\u2019s silence is consistent with the divine plan of salvation.<\/p>\n

Mark\u2019s readers of the time, particularly those suffering from persecution in Rome, needed to appreciate that human perseverance in free surrender to God, as Jesus has done, does not spare one from suffering. Pain is part of the Christian path. They needed to hear clearly that Jesus loved to the end, with a love that would not let go, despite atrocious suffering. Seeking to mitigate Jesus\u2019 suffering implicit in questioning God\u2019s silence does not do justice to the necessary combination of Jesus\u2019 passion and the cross on the one hand, and the excruciating emotions inevitable in dire human suffering on the other. To mitigate his suffering would only seriously de-humanise Jesus and stifle his authentic exercise of authentic human freedom.[9]<\/a><\/p>\n

Mark thus shows that God\u2019s silence counters a miracle faith and demands discipleship<\/em>. Any direct revelation or direct intervention would lead only to a miracle-faith such as even the demons possess. Instead, to help break the sin-pattern in recalcitrant humanity, God has to take the way of death \u201cin obscurity, in disgrace and in humility.\u201d Jesus\u2019 cry of lamentation and dying with a loud cry were clear pointers that there was no easy way or quick relief. Mark strenuously underscores the hard truth that \u201cdiscipleship is the only form in which faith can exist<\/em>\u201d[10]<\/a>. \u201cTake up your cross and follow me\u201d (8:34), the Markan Jesus intones. Mark\u2019s story then concludes the way it started, as the<\/em> Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God<\/em>. Jesus the suffering Son of God, the angel announced, was no longer among the dead (16:6). Jesus\u2019 fidelity to the Father led to his crucifixion and to his resurrection. They reveal deep dimensions about love and its lack: the cross betrays human capacity for cruel deafness, that common phenomenon of lack of love and not listening to God; the empty tomb is God\u2019s irrevocable reply on behalf of Jesus who loved well and listened closely.<\/p>\n

Thirdly, the silence of God at Calvary reveals a suffering God<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Jesus experienced such closeness to the Father that his spiritual communion was typified by his awesome address of God as \u201cAbba\u201d. Jesus\u2019 Abba-experience<\/u><\/em>[11]<\/a> holds the key to the confidence that God the Father would always be present to His \u201cbeloved Son\u201d. From the moment of baptism in the Jordan, the entire ministry of Jesus the Son would be Spirit-filled and Spirit-driven, so much so that throughout his ministry, Jesus carried himself with such confidence, power and authority. The fact is, the power and authority of the Father was with him and in him through the Spirit. Indeed, the Son was so determined to do the will of the Father that despite the vision of imminent suffering before him at Gethsemane, so much so that he would humanly wished for the bitter cup to pass him by, yet he would submit to the will of the Father rather than insist on his own. In Jesus, Mark clarifies, God\u2019s passionate love for humankind became a sorrowful <\/em>Passion. As love is always willing to suffer, God suffered with the Son<\/em>. Through Jesus, we have come to believe in a God who can suffer<\/u><\/em>. Now, we can say, the Father Himself suffered because the Son did<\/em>.[12]<\/a> Incarcerated in Nazi prison, Dietrich Bonhoeffer saw incisively that \u201cGod and suffering are not opposites but rather one and the same thing and necessarily so.\u201d For him, \u201cthe idea that God suffers is far and away the most convincing piece of Christian doctrine.\u201d He wrote shortly before his execution:<\/p>\n

\u201cGod would have us know that we must live as men who manage our lives without him. The God who is with us is the God who forsakes us (Mark 15:34) \u2026 God lets himself be pushed out of the world on to the cross. He is weak and powerless in the world, and that is precisely the way, the only way, in which he is with us and helps us. Matt 8:17 makes it quite clear that Christ helps us, not by virtue of his omnipotence, but by virtue of his weakness and suffering … Man\u2019s religiosity makes him look in his distress to the power of God in the world: God is the dues ex machina<\/em> (\u201cGod out of a slot machine\u201d). The Bible directs man to God\u2019s powerlessness and suffering; only the suffering God can help<\/em>\u2026 that is a reversal of what the religious man expects from God. Man is summoned to share in God\u2019s sufferings at the hands of a godless world.\u201d[13]<\/a><\/p>\n

The work that Jesus did was the work of the Father working in him through the Spirit. So God himself hung in the gallows, as even Elie Wiesel the Auschwitz survivor was able to say. Taking that seriously, J\u00fcrgen Moltmann concluded that, like the cross of Christ, not only is God in Auschwitz, but \u201ceven Auschwitz is in God himself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGod in Auschwitz and Auschwitz in the crucified God \u2013 that is the basis for a real hope which both embraces and overcomes the world, and the ground for a love which is stronger than death and can sustain death. It is the ground for living with the terror of history \u2026 for living and bearing guilt and sorrow for the future of [humanity] in God.\u201d[14]<\/a><\/p>\n

And yet, it is right here, that we approach the ultimate paradox: God suffers silently, in the face of deep and unjust suffering heaped on the innocent Son to the point of reducing him to a forlorn and forsaken, utterly humiliated and lamenting victim hanging on the cross.<\/p>\n

That silence of the cross is the door to the ultimate revelation of true God and true humankind<\/em>:<\/p>\n