When God Goes Silent
What Zechariah’s Story Teaches Us About Listening Again
This reflection is part of our Lenten journey together, a slower, quieter walk through the stories that shape us.
Lent is not about striving harder, but about listening more carefully. About noticing what we usually drown out. About allowing God to work in the silences we would normally rush to fill.
Thank you for making this deeper exploration possible. Your support creates space for reflections like this; unhurried, thoughtful, and honest.
We live in a world terrified of silence. The moment things go quiet, we reach for our phones, fill the air with music, chatter, or distraction. We’ve become experts at filling every gap, but terrible at just listening.
In the Bible, there is a story about a man named Zechariah, a priest forced to stop and listen.
“Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. But the angel said to him: ‘Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John.’”
It was an extraordinary message, but Zechariah didn’t buy it.
“Us? Have a baby? At our age? Don’t be ridiculous.”
His cynicism sounds natural, the way it does when life’s disappointments pile up, and so the angel replied:
“You will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words.”
At first glance, it seems like punishment. But I do not think it was. It was more like mercy.
