This past Sunday, as like most Sundays, I was tuned into the online church service at Brookfield First and almost caught myself crying.
This wasn't the first time I've almost cried during service. Pastor Phil Morgan always delivers a powerful, well-thought-out message. But this message was just perfect for the season that we are in right now.
The story read is called "The Long Silence". It is a story about us human's anger towards God. Being furious with him for judging us unfairly. I have been guilty of doing this on multiple occasions. Whenever I find myself in some sort of worldly struggle, my prayers tend to go from "thank you God" to "why God? what did I do to deserve this?"
I think if we are honest with ourselves, we have all found ourselves in this state of mind throughout our lives. The Long Silence puts all of our fist-shaking anger at God into some pretty sobering perspective.
Below you will find a video of Pastor Phil's reading of this story. Cut out all distractions and take a few minutes to let this story fill you with gratitude for an all-loving, all-knowing, all-UNDERSTANDING, powerful God.
The Long Silence
At the end of time, billions of people were scattered on the vast plain before God’s Throne. Some shrank back from the brilliant light before them. But many other groups talked heatedly, not cringing with shame, but with belligerence.
“Can God judge us? How can He know about suffering?”, snapped a pert brunette. She ripped open a sleeve to reveal a tattooed number from a Nazi concentration camp. “We endured terror … beating … torture … death!”
In another group, a Negro boy lowered his collar. “What about this?” he demanded, showing an ugly rope burn. “Lynched, for no crime but being black.” In another crowd there was a pregnant schoolgirl with sullen eyes: “Why should I suffer?” she murmured. “It wasn’t my fault.”
Far out across the plain were thousands of such groups. Each had a complaint against God for all the evil and suffering He had permitted in His world. How lucky God was to live in Heaven, where all was sweetness and light, where there was no weeping and fear, no hunger or hatred, no sickness or sorrow. What did God know of all that humankind had been forced to endure in this world? After all, God leads a rather sheltered sort of life, they said.
So each of these groups sent forth a leader, especially chosen because they had suffered the most. A Jew, a Negro, a person from Hiroshima, a horribly deformed arthritic, a thalidomide child, an AIDS victim. In the center of the vast plain, these leaders consulted with each other. At last, they were ready to present their case, item by item, leader by leader, to God. It was rather pertinent. Before God could be qualified to be their Judge, He must endure what they had endured. Their decision was that God should be sentenced to live on earth as a human being, as a man. Let him be born of the most despised race, a Jew, in poverty-stricken conditions. Let the legitimacy of his birth be doubted. As a child, let him be forced to flee as a refugee, and live several years in a foreign country. Then give him a work to do, and an ideal to uphold that is so difficult that even his own family will think him out of his mind when he tries to do it. Let him be betrayed by his closest colleague, into the hands of those who hate him. Let him face false charges, be tried by a prejudiced jury, and convicted by a cowardly judge.
At the last, let him see what it means to be terribly, terribly alone – forsaken by all his friends. Let him be tortured. Then let him die. Let him die the most excruciating, and humiliating death possible, before a taunting, reviling crowd, that not only verified his death but contributed to it. As each leader announced his portion of the sentence, loud murmurs of approval went up from the whole assembled throng. When the last leader had finished pronouncing his part of God’s sentence, there was a long silence.
No one uttered another word. Nobody moved.
For suddenly, everybody knew that God had already served His sentence.