(Grandson Levi's hand)
There is a time for silence, and a time for sound.
In a musical score, there are rests, and there are notes. Without rests the notes would lose their individuality. Without rests, the notes would bleed together.
Rests abstain. Notes obtain.
In a rest there is the absence of notes. There may be the sounds of overtones and echoes of notes recently played. But in a rest there is the celebration of quietness.
Without rests, there will be no drama. No anticipation. No hope. The emptiness of a musical pause sets the stage for the fullness of notes to shine forth.
Surely one of the greatest musical rests ever written is at the end of Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus." An article on the BBC says, "the Hallelujah Chorus at the end of part 2 is in D major and concludes with a plagal cadence." After a series of choral hallelujahs, the sounds come to an abrupt stop. This prepares us for a full-force IV chord, which will resolve into the I chord. (If the key is D, the IV chord is G, the I chord is D.) The "plagal cadence" is the IV chord returning home to the I chord. For those of us who love Handel's "Messiah," this is what we have been waiting for.
The absolute silence is just as needed as the plagal cadence.
The muteness is as important as the wordness.
Both muteness and wordness are needed for witness.
Henri Nouwen writes:
"Somewhere we know that without silence words lose their meaning, that without listening speaking no longer heals, that without distance closeness cannot cure. Somewhere we know that without a lonely place our actions quickly become empty gestures." (Nouwen, You are the Beloved.)
At Redeemer we are still preaching through the book of Revelation. Revelation is, among other things, a feast of literary and linguistic fireworks. An overflowing goblet of falling-to-the-ground worship. A never-ending, repetitive holy-holy-holy-ness. But in the midst of it all, the universe and all that is in it is reduced to ear-deafening, absolute, auditory vacuity.
We read...
When he opened the seventh seal,
there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.
Revelation 8:1
As I begin to try and think about what this will feel like, I feel I am to emulate the silence and keep my mouth shut and resist trying to give words to the quiet.
Before us lies a world, awaiting Something, and Someone, to be heralded by seven supernatural trumpets, Who will, out of the Great Pause, resolve all anticipatory IV chords into the everlasting I-chord.
And that my little life must make silence and stillness essential parts of the composition God wants to orchestrate through me.
