“How to find peace on
a long silent night”

If you sit alone near the window at the end of a short December day, you will find night  comes quickly so you grab a cozy plush blanket. The moon is bright. The house is quiet. The twinkling lights of the Christmas tree and your neighborhood lights add sparkle to the stillness.

Take a deep breath and seek solace in the silence. Let your heart rest in the hallowed hush. We don’t have a God who merely pierces our darkness: We have a Savior who lingers beside us on our long silent nights

Advent is a season for hoping, waiting and silence. For Zechariah in the Gospel of Luke, silence was imposed by an angel. A kind of discipline? For sure. But also a gift, a gift that stimulates reflection and creativity. In Advent, we put into practice what we read in Psalm 62:5, “For God alone my soul waits in silence, for my hope is in God.”

There are times when being silent is a good thing, especially for those of us who tend to fill the air with lots of words. I don’t know for sure that this was true of Zechariah. But, given his quick, bold response to the angel, and given the angel’s response, I have a hunch that Zechariah was just the sort of person for whom a season of silence would be enriching, character-building, and perhaps even healing. Rather than yammering on and on for nine months, Zechariah would have time to reflect, to pray, to consider the immense responsibility he was about to accept. We are going to reflect and learn from Zechariah Sunday in worship. Hope you can join!

Silence is often considered to be an essential practice of Advent. When we are quiet, we also have time for reflection and creativity. We can get in touch with our longings for God in a way that won’t happen when we’re filling our world with sound, whether from our own mouths, from the mouths of others, or from the myriad of electronic devices that buzz away endlessly.

May you find silence on a long winter night!!