Isaiah 53:7

Midweek 5

Theme: Knowing when to keep quiet

⁷He was oppressed, but he humbled himself (and He was afflicted,) Yet He did not aopen His mouth; bLike a lamb that is led to slaughter, And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, So He did not open His mouth.

Open mouth; insert foot. Sound familiar? We have all done it at one time or another. We have all said things when it would have been best for us to simply keep quiet.

Keeping quiet is not one of the virtues of people today. We may well be the loudest, noisiest, brashest generation there has ever been. Today, the energy of all the television and radio signals emitted form the earth exceeds the output of those same wavelengths from the sun. Our world is full of noise from man and our machines, with loud music, vehicles, airplanes, and equipment all adding to the din.

All this noise exacts its toll. Lawsuits filed by homeowners living near airports claim that airport noise has lowered their property values. I can even remember the day when sonic booms from jets flying overhead would break windows in houses.

Yet the greatest damage is done by the sound emitted by that small but powerful organ; the tongue. It is our tongue which gets us into trouble when we do not keep quiet. Who could possible count all the sins we commit with our tongues? Sins against the Second Commandment are the misuse and profanation of God’s holy name. Who could keep track of all the curses uttered in our streets and even in our homes? With the tongue we curse people whom God had created in his own image and for whom Christ died. The Scriptures tell us, “Out of the same mouth come blessing and curse. My brothers, this should not be.”

Then, consider how we break the Fourth Commandment. Words of disrespect for our fathers and mothers, who brought us into the world, gave us life and nurture us in love. We may have uttered words that wounded their hearts and pierced their souls.

The 4th commandment extends to all in authority—our boss, our government and its leaders and all those whom God has placed over us. Instead of biting our lips and keeping quiet when we should, how often have we been insolent? Sometimes we get away with it. But sometimes the words are overheard and come back to haunt us.

Perhaps most often we violate the 8th Commandment. “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” Churches can be breeding grounds for gossip. Just because something is true does not give us license to blab it around when that harms our neighbor. Moreover, gossip tends to spawn unkind and untrue stories. We make negative judgments about people’s motives, misinterpret their actions, defame their character, harm their reputation, and sully their good name. Instead of putting the best construction on things, how much more fun it is to put the worst construction on things. How tempting it is to put a new twist on the story and bend the truth to keep it interesting, instead of keeping quiet like we know we should.

We need to learn to keep quiet. This is true in our relationships with our fellow human beings, and in our relationship with God. We need times of quietness before God too. God likes to hear our prayers, but we also need to keep quiet sometimes to hear his Word to us. He says in the Psalms, “Be quiet and know that I am God.”

God tells us about our suffering Savior, whose silence atoned for all our sins of speech. No one in the history of the world has had more justification to complain than Jesus Christ. But instead of protesting when he was oppressed, he humbled himself and did not open his mouth. Our verse states that fact twice just to make the point. He did not open his mouth.

When they came to arrest Jesus, he could have called on his Father to send legions of angels to fight off the mob, yet Jesus kept quiet. When false accusations were brought against him by false witnesses during his trials, Jesus made no reply. In agony on the cross, Jesus suffered silently, uttering only seven brief sentences.

Jesus kept the Second Commandment. He did not misuse God’s name by calling for God to punish those who crucified him, including us. As Jesus writhed in agony, he did not curse those who crucified him. Instead, he prayed quietly, “Father, forgive them.” Jesus silently laid down his life as an offering, that those who had lost the image of God may be restored to the righteous image of God by his grace in his righteous Son.

Jesus kept the Fourth Commandment for us by respecting those in authority, despite their sin of condemning a just man. Jesus had good reason to address some choice words to the high priest. He certainly would have been justified if he had expressed contempt for Pilate, the coward who washed his hands of responsibility for his own decision to set a murderer free and execute Jesus. But Jesus respected Pilate’s God given authority as a government official.

Moreover, Jesus could have said much in criticism of others. He knows full well the sins we commit with our words. He associated with tax collectors, prostitutes and sinners of all kind. He never spread one word of rumor or gossip about them, true as it would have been. When a woman caught in adultery was brought to him he merely said, “I do not condemn you. Go and sin no more.” Instead of calling for her execution as required by the Law, Jesus, restrained in speech, acquitted her.

God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world. Jesus could have spent his entire life uttering words of condemnation. Instead, he spoke words of salvation and consolation. When the time came for Jesus to lay down his life in ransom for our sins—including our sins of speech—he kept his silence. The Lamb of God went to the slaughterer willingly and silently.

Jesus suffered in silence to make up for all the times we should have kept quiet, but did not. Jesus’ mute suffering made up for all our cursing, shouting, disrespectful words, gossip, slander, and vicious attacks. Jesus’ willing silence makes amends for all the times we put our foot in our mouths—for our careless words, our hasty speech, our rash talk.

During this Lent, we ponder in awed silence what Jesus has done for us. Though we may feel we have good reason to complain—though we may be maligned, mistreated, misquoted—Christ shows us how not to sin with our tongues. His forgiveness grants us peace that we may keep quiet.

Amen.