GOD IS NOT MUTE
"During the two-week period when I was snowbound in a mountain cabin in
Colorado, blizzards closed all roads and I had nothing to do but read
the Bible. I went through it slowly, page by page. In the Old Testament
I found myself identifying with those who boldly stood up to God: Moses,
Job, Jeremiah, Habakkuk, the psalmists. As I read, I felt I was watching
a play with human characters who acted out their lives of small triumph
and large tragedy onstage, while periodically calling to an unseen Stage
Manager, 'You don't know what it's like out here!'
"Job was most brazen, flinging to God this accusation: 'Do you have eyes
of flesh? Do you see as a mortal sees?'
"Every so often I could hear the echo of a booming voice from far
offstage, behind the curtain. 'Yeah, and you don't know what it's like
back here either!' it said to Moses, to the prophets, most clearly to
Job. When I got to the Gospels, however, the accusing voices stilled.
God, if I may use such language, 'found out' what life is like in the
confines of planet Earth. Jesus got acquainted with grief in person, in
a brief, troubled life not far from the dusty plains where Job had
travailed. Of the many reasons for incarnation, surely one was to answer
Job's accusation: Do you have eyes of flesh? For a time, God did.
"If only I could hear the voice from the whirlwind and, like Job, hold a
conversation with God directly! I sometimes think. And perhaps that is
why I now choose to write about Jesus. God is not mute: the Word spoke,
not out of a whirlwind, but out of the human larynx of a Palestinian
Jew. In Jesus, God lay down on the dissection table, as it were,
stretched out in cruciform posture for the scrutiny of all skeptics who
have ever lived. Including me."
- Philip Yancey, Grace Notes
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