God is Silent

I am a person who is quick to defend myself. Often, too quick. 

But I think things through, I do my research, I consider every possibility that I can think of, and when I act, it is because I believe that acting is better than not acting. When I speak, it is because I believe that speaking is better than not speaking. So if my words or my actions come into question, as they sometimes do for all of us, I am quick to try to explain how I arrived where I did, convinced that if everyone could just hear me speak my logic, it would make sense. 

So when Jesus stands in front of Pilate and says nothing in His own defense (Matthew 27:11-14), it completely fascinates me. 

Jesus, unlike me, has every reason to know that He's right. That what He's doing is perfectly what He should be doing. That there's no reason for Him to be under scrutiny like this. (By contrast, I often very much deserve my scrutiny...and much more that I do not receive by some magical gift of grace.) Jesus is the One person in all of human history who truly could speak in His own defense with authority and absolute assurance. 

But He doesn't. 

And I think the reason He doesn't speak is because being "right" isn't part of the plan; being righteous is. 

Jesus could have spoken. He spent the Gospels speaking, so we know He was capable. But imagine that Jesus speaks here. What could He have said?

He would have had to try to reveal Himself in words, not in love, and we would have lost something essential of Him. He would have had to be honest about the ulterior motives of the Pharisees and religious leaders who brought Him here, which would have been a character assassination difficult for any of us to swallow. He spoke fairly frequently about the way these men behaved, but here, He would have had to reveal their hearts, and that would have been an entirely different tone. It would not have helped us love Him more. 

He would have had to directly challenge the authority of the court - something He was careful not to do. He didn't do this because His people were somewhat expecting a political revolutionary as Messiah, but the Kingdom of God is something far, far different than Rome, and He didn't want to blur those lines. If He speaks against the court, those lines are blurred. 

Jesus could have spoken, but if He had, we would have only ever known Him as "right." 

It's His silence that conveys His righteousness. It led Him to the Cross, where His love was revealed. And that took Him to the tomb, where His surrender was confirmed. And that tomb became empty, where His victory became certain. 

All because He chose to be silent when the Word could have spoken. 

This gives me two powerful things to think about: first, it reminds me to consider my own words and to be mindful of whether I am trying to be right or to be righteous and what is the best way to go about that. 

Second, it makes me wonder what He might be revealing in my life when He is silent...when I'm sitting here desperately wanting Him to speak. What might I see if I simply pay attention?