Faith Works 4-11-20

Faith Works 4-11-20

Jeff Gill

 

Silence in the streets

___

 

It is the night after the crucifixion of Jesus, or maybe the next night. It's hard to tell.

 

There had been a vast darkness over Jerusalem, whether an eclipse as some said, a storm front suddenly overwhelming the city shrouding the sun, a rumbling that might have been a huge thunderstorm, or some felt as an earthquake.

 

Whatever shook the city, it threw everyone off, from Romans right down to the stones. Pilate suddenly was throwing clemency to petitioners, Passover being a few hours away, the Temple in chaos with strange rumors leaving the courtyards and echoing around the slowly stilling city, and the dark and rain and rumbles deep beneath the earth settling into their old familiar places, after a day of upheaval.

 

You know that the Sanhedrin and the procurator's staff in the praetorium had to like the stillness. Many still remembered the chaos of rioting and revolt that was so brutally put down by Pontius Pilate on a Passover week just a few years earlier. Doubtless this was why he was so harsh at the first signs of popular unrest, why Jesus and a few other usual suspects were rounded up and executed. A few must die, so the crowd may live, and life might get back to what we're all used to, Hebrews and Romans alike.

 

So quiet, now. Cats, perhaps, silently slinking along the gutters in search of prey, and always the mice and rats. The occasional cooing of a dove perched on a stone wall or cornice.

 

Everyone is inside. Safe, if there is such a place. Doors barred, windows latched. As night falls, the end of Sabbath would not be greeted with strolling families in the streets. Tomorrow, the first day of the week would dawn cautiously, fearfully, anxiously. Few would venture out early, and none would challenge the soldiers guarding everything from the Mount of Olives in the east to the cemeteries west of the city gates.

 

Dark, and silent, but the stars were coming out. The storms and earthquakes had passed, and the cooling pavement stretched out below, empty. But if you were staying in a rented room, up above the family quarters at street level, you could look out more safely than they. You could crane your neck around to see the last light on the rear of the Temple, reflecting the setting sun, the rosy glow of Jerusalem limestone.

 

Above, the deep blue of twilight spread from east to west, and the first two or three stars twinkled into view. Beyond them, God, who had done nothing to interfere with the sorrows of . . . yesterday? The day before? When the power of empire and the connivance of the religious authorities had intersected at the cross itself, two timbers hauled into place so a victim could be nailed and held up for public display and be seen to die. This the fate of any opponent of Rome, this the hazard of any resistance, even without weapons. A cruel death, and no one, nothing would stop it.

 

So you look back out across the still damp, silent, aching streets. All around the edges of shuttered windows show a faint yellow line of light within, but outside is darkness growing, and the chill light of stars. It seems as if the darkness will overcome all light, all hope, all freedom to seek God in any way other than what's officially approved. A darkness and silence that Rome surely will find satisfactory.

 

For you, looking out across the city, a question. Where does your hope, your help come from? You know the teaching of the psalm book. It is hard, though, in the present moment. But you recall and whisper the words of the one that tells you "My help comes from the Lord, who made the heavens and the earth," and the one after that: pray for the peace of Jerusalem. You whisper the psalms you can remember as prayers, until you fall asleep, to greet the next day.

 

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he knows he should have more psalms memorized than he does. They can come in handy. Tell him what passages of scripture you have committed to memory at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.