Joy to the World: Understanding the power of God's silence
It was silent. A darkened silence. As that of the universe before God’s six-day creation. No prophet spoke. No direction shown.
Only darkness filled the earth. Only man heard man. Only people saw people. The presence of God was…gone?
I don’t remember ever hearing the song quite the way it was revealed to me this time.
“Joy to the world, the Savior reigns
Let men their songs employ
While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains
Repeat the sounding joy.”
Yes, Rejoice! Sing praises! Be glad! The Messiah has come! We're free! Proclaim the Light has arrived to reverse the curse.
All of this is true.
But it was more, so much more than that.
God had never sent Joy to man before.
Winds? ✔️ Rains? ✔️ Manna? ✔️ Clouds? ✔️ Horses & chariots? ✔️
But imagine your world silent, shut off from God’s voice for four centuries, even four years, four months, four weeks…maybe you’re okay for some time but after a while you begin to question everything you’ve ever heard, known, and done.
If you're like me, you've experienced God's silence maybe too many times to count, and you've groaned “where are You Father? What did I do to be this far from Your voice? Return to me.”
And if you've walked with God long enough, you have realized His omniscient sovereignty won't allow Him to be removed completely from His creation. But where does He go in the silence and why is it important to experience it?
I want to take you to the Book of Malachi in The Holy Bible.
At the completion of the old covenant, Malachi - God's messenger - pens a prophecy full of admonishment to the Israelite priests. As the keepers of God’s sanctuary, they had failed to keep reverence for His kingship.
In the book, God declares His love for Israel despite their lack of love and fear toward Him.
To them, like us, God's relationship requirements were summed up in three actions: Believe, obey, & teach.
Displeased with the priests and their disobedience as shown through the sacrifice of defiled animals - believing they could obey God by offering unthoughtful, blemished animals - God spoke through Malachi about what they were truly teaching the people about His glory…
“You bring stolen, lame, or sick animals. You bring this as an offering! Am I to accept that from your hands? ” asks the Lord. “The deceiver is cursed who has an acceptable male in his flock and makes a vow but sacrifices a defective animal to the Lord. For I am a great King,” says Yahweh of Hosts, “and My name will be feared among the nations. Malachi 1:13-14 HCSB
Reminding them of their betrayal:
“Judah has acted treacherously, and a detestable thing has been done in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah has profaned the Lord’s sanctuary, which He loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god.” Malachi 2:11 HCSB
A faithful God had been replaced with self-defined righteousness, and the people married to themselves covenants of disobedience and discord.
So, what does God give them for their “gifts”?
A grave reminder…
“For indeed, the day is coming, burning like a furnace, when all the arrogant and everyone who commits wickedness will become stubble. The coming day will consume them,” says the Lord of Hosts, “not leaving them root or branches. “Remember the instruction of Moses My servant, the statutes and ordinances I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel. Look, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome Day of the Lord comes. Malachi 4:1, 4-5 HCSB
2. …and His silence.
Enter the intertestamental period, simply put, after Malachi’s message, God went hush from 397 BC to 4 BC.
So, had He changed the plan about the Day of the Lord? Was the people's wickedness too burdensome? Had man wrung His patience dry?
No, with His silence He was actually readying (us) for His greatest words yet. John 1:1
God had used silence to respond to great disobedience, to give way to His planned restoration - He’d been known to hush His voice in preparation for glorious intervention.
William MacDonald states, “[God’s muted 400 years] actually follows a pattern God has repeated throughout the Old Testament. First, God generally designed or allowed a desperate situation to arise before presenting His deliverance. Secondly, He always called upon a faithful servant to “stand in the gap,” making intercession to Him on behalf of the people (Ezek 22:30), and to be His agent through whom He performed His work.”
Knowing that God’s silence was preparation, what was he preparing the people for…was it an abundance of rain after a drought? The release from Roman oppression? Provision of food after famine?
None of these and all of them at the same time…
Living Water (John 4:1-26 (see v. 10))
King of Kings (Revelation 19:11-16 (see v. 16))
Bread of Life (John 6:22-51 (see v. 35))
…came through a baby’s cry.
God, You sent a child to break Your silence and save Your glory? A manger-born baby boy as that of a firstborn male lamb set for sacrifice was the planned restoration and fulfilled prophesy (Micah 4:8)? That's how silence was finished? Yep, Curlfriends, that’s right. To clear the wreckage of our defiled behavior, after asking only for obedient love and seeing that His people would not and could not deliver, He broke the silence with a sound not foreign to man, but definitely not thunderous enough to overturn armies, neither powerful enough to call rain from Heaven, and as deafening as it sounds, not strong enough to make food appear. However, that cry, oh with that cry began the most wondrous and unbelievable salvation of our wrecked souls…it shook the foundation of sin’s reign.
Joy had actually come to the World after what must have felt like the greatest letdown and abandonment. In a person unlike simple man, Joy, a thought and promise not spiritually experienced in nearly four centuries, and likely deeply yearned for in those almost 400 years had come to the people again.
Not only for their responsive praise and gladness, but for their obedience and following. God’s return on His promise deserved reverence.
Joy was hope made flesh that would seal who God said He was to who God revealed He was. Joy would call man to Christ and give them a place to belong in the world.
So how does this give way to my revelation of song? How does the book of Malachi relate to Joy to the World, the carol?
It all comes down to the patterns of God. The song reveals that when the people may have thought God was gone forever, He fulfilled His prophesy with Joy. It was the psalm sung from the cave. It was the prayer uttered after shaken disappointment. It was hopeful proclamation that Light had reentered their lives. Joy, instead of harsh fire like rain, came down to them and there were requirements to remain in His presence. God would try again with His people, because His glory was too great.
Curl check:
Knowing silence as a key component in God’s relation to creation really brings greater peace and promise to the many seasons of our lives. It reassures us that this is a part of His connection to a fallen and picked-up people. To understand that God responded to disobedience, waywardness, wrong turns, and idolatry with silence first gives great example to how we should respond to wrongdoing - take a beat and only then proceed - and second it also confirms to us that His silence is a part of His character, not a deviation from it, and definitely not a sign of Him leaving us.
After your great letdown and what may feel like prolonged or infinite abandonment, be reminded that our Father’s silence is His powerful practice of on-time intervention as He prepares to reunite His glorious presence with your soul.
He’s a prophesy fulfiller.
He’s a sin-killer.
He’s silent on purpose.
He’s worthy of praise.
He’s an on-time cry from a cave.
He’s Joy to the world.
Behave as the ones who know that the grave reminder and Savior given are from the same God who deserves your praise and obedience. The same God whose silence means power is hushed on purpose.
Because Joy came back to the world after God’s withheld tongue, you never have to question the darkened silence of your life. Jesus Christ is proof that God’s glory matters much more than your disobedience, and if you believe the Father’s Word, you know that Joy sealed the promise that God will never leave you or forsake you. Joy is yours, and you are His, and now we joyously cry praises at His anticipated second coming.
Merry Christmas, Curlfriends! I’ll leave you with two of my favorite contemporary renditions of the carol, 1. sung by Whitney Houston and the Georgia Mass Choir and 2. sung by Mariah Carey . What’s your favorite rendition of the carol?
“Joy to the World”:
Written by Isaac Watts, the 1719 English carol is based on a Christian interpretation of Psalm 98, Psalm 96, and chapter 3 of the Book of Genesis, and is usually sung to an 1848 arrangement by the American composer Lowell Mason.
Unexplainable peace and insurmountable joy are two of the wondrous gifts of God through Christ Jesus’ birth.
Shine, Smile, and Love!
If you feel led to share this blog post on social media, please use #CurlfriendsandGodssilence
Resources:
World, Get With the Program: Joy! Joy! Joy!
What Happened Between the Old and New Testament?
Away in a Manger at Migdal Eder
You might hear a little extra bit of joy at the end of this twirl’s audio recording.
