Andrew Peterson | West Park Baptist Church

There’s a Christmas album that my family and I love to listen to every Advent season. It’s called Behold the Lamb of God, and it’s produced and performed by Andrew Peterson and many of his friends. It’s a musical journey through the themes of the Old Testament leading up to and culminating in the birth of Jesus Christ.

In one song Andrew Peterson sings a song called “So Long, Moses.” It’s a song that covers the time of the book of Joshua up to the Old Testament prophets. It spans the trials and sins of Israel as they eagerly look for a mighty King to come, to rescue and to establish them in the land.

As the song builds you get the sense that Israel almost gives up waiting for the king. Saul, David, Solomon and then a series of failures leading up to the Babylonian captivity leave the people disillusioned and broken. Yet, they ask Isaiah the prophet, who saw in a vision from God what would happen after the time of their captivity,

So speak, Isaiah / Prophet of Judah / Can you tell of the One / This king who’s going to come? / Will he be a king on a throne / Full of power with a sword in his fist? ‘ Prophet, tell us will there be another king like this? / Full of wisdom, full of strength / The hearts of the people are his / Prophet, tell us will there be another king like this?

You feel the desperation of the people in those words. Isaiah responds in the song,

He’ll bear no beauty or glory / Rejected, despised / A man of such sorrow / We’ll cover our eyes. / He’ll take up our sickness / Carry our tears / For his people / He will be pierced / He’ll be crushed for our evils / Our punishment feel / By his wounds / We will be healed.

Our journey this week through Scripture has revealed the way of God – the way of salvation and the way to paradise. For us to get there, for us to have the perfect King ruling over all this earth, for us to be saved, the King had to suffer and be crushed for our sins.

Think of the pain and suffering He endured for you.

Isaiah 53:4–6

[4] Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
[5] But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.
[6] All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all. (ESV)

This year has been hard, revealing at times our worst, and revealing the utter helplessness of man to save himself. By default we want the crown but not the suffering. Jesus put aside His crown and endured the suffering in the place of lost and hopeless sinners.

When this winter seems dark, and when our plans seem to be dashed, remember Isaiah 53. The King put aside His rightful place on the throne, entered our dark world, and took on the sins of us sinners. Jesus knows what it is like to experience pain, loss, suffering, and separation from God. He did these things so that our experience of them in this life could be redeemed, so our pain, loss and suffering would never be connected to separation from God. He is with us in our suffering right now, and by His wounds all our sins and griefs and brokenness will be ministered to and eventually… completely healed.

Here’s a link to the song “So Long, Moses” by Andrew Peterson.

“It’s enough to drive a man crazy, it’ll break a man’s faith
It’s enough to make him wonder, if he’s ever been sane
When he’s bleating for comfort from Thy staff and Thy rod
And the Heaven’s only answer is the silence of God”

So sings Andrew Peterson in his song “the Silence of God.”

I’ve listened to that song many times over the years, mostly on repeat on one of Andrew’s albums. I’ve pondered on how times of silence from God can cause any one of us to wonder if we’ve ever been sane. So much can happen in that silence that serves to break us, things from seasons of job loss to the death of loved ones. In those times it seems like God is not there. Or worse, that He doesn’t care.

But I was reminded this past Sunday at church from our lead pastor that “God’s silence is not God’s absence.”

Consider how God broke his silence in Luke 1:5-25 and how that passage informs us about what God does in the silence.

Zechariah was a man who was used to the silence of God:

He served as a priest, ministering in the temple and upholding the law in spite of 400 years of silence with no legitimate prophet speaking from God.

He was also an old man who for years had prayed for a child, but his wife remained barren. Again, he was used to the silence of God.

But God confronted Zechariah that day in the temple with the truth: even though he was silent, he was always present and active.

What did God at last say to break the silence?

In one announcement God spoke into both of Zechariah’s longings:

“…your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son” (Luke 1:13), and “[your son] will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared” (Luke 1:16-17).

How amazing! God once again reveals Himself. And He reveals that in the silence He was setting things in motion. The word we looked at in Malachi earlier in the week as a promise is here fulfilled in the gift of the the baby to Zechariah and Elizabeth. What an amazing, faithful, promise-fulfilling God!

Time escapes here to dwell more on Zechariah’s silence that ensued due to his unbelief. Please do go to our sermon page and catch Sam Polson’s message and the teaching about how we can respond to God in repentance over our own unbelief.

For now, I hope two things can encourage you:

God often seems silent in our lives, but He is, in truth, actively working in us. He wills to grow us in times when He’s silent, for it is in those times that He tests our faith in what He has already said. Read those promises in the Bible and place your faith in the God who spoke them and will bring them to pass.
Ultimately, God has spoken definitively in His Son. The ultimate news God willed to break the silence is that He would share His dearly-beloved Son. He was coming! John would prepare the way for Him. And oh, what a Savior! Jesus Christ came once, lived a sinless life, died for the sake of sinners, and now lives eternally to intercede for His beloved people: those who have repented and believed in Him but still at times here feel the silence of God.

I’m pretty sure that’s why Andrew Peterson ends his song the way he does:

“And the man of all sorrows, he never forgot
What sorrow is carried by the hearts that he bought
So when the questions dissolve into the silence of God
The aching may remain but the breaking does not
The aching may remain but the breaking does not
In the holy, lonesome echo of the silence of God”

Advent 2020 – Isaiah 53 (Dec. 12)

Week 1-Day 2: the Silence of God