End of Silence – A Complicated Christmas

We’re just a couple of days away from Christmas, and I need to admit something that feels almost wrong to say as a pastor: it doesn’t feel very Christmasy this year. The shopping is done. The decorations have been up for weeks. We’ve had parties, winter ballet recitals, and all the festive chaos that fills December. I’ve eaten Little Debbie Christmas trees, Christmas cookies, McDonald’s holiday custard pie, and drank my fair share of white peppermint mochas. I’ve listened to Christmas music. I’ve read the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ birth and the familiar stories that come with the season.

And yet… something feels quiet.

It’s not the weather. We’ve had snow. We’ve had cold. It’s not nostalgia either—I can still feel the memories. Christmas is here whether I’m emotionally ready for it or not. I don’t have a bad attitude. I’m not distant from God. I’m not angry or discouraged. I just feel almost stoic. No strong emotion in either direction. Just present. Calm. Still.

In my head, it feels silent. Anyone else ever feel that way?

I have a strange love–hate relationship with losing power at our house. I hate it because I don’t sleep well without the hum of normal life—fans, heat, appliances. But I also love it because of the silence. You think you’ve heard silence… and then the power goes out. If it happens during a snowfall, it’s even more intense. Snow acts like a natural sound dampener. No cars. No background noise. No refrigerator hum. Nothing stirring in the house. You realize that what you thought was silence before wasn’t silence at all.

There are laboratories on earth called anechoic chambers—rooms designed to absorb all sound so there is no echo or reverb. People who spend too much time inside them begin to feel disoriented. Some even hallucinate. Silence that deep isn’t peaceful—it’s unsettling. That kind of silence helps us understand the world Jesus entered. It was like a spiritual anechoic chamber.

For roughly four hundred years before Jesus was born, God’s people lived in what felt like complete spiritual silence. After the prophet Malachi, there were no new prophetic words. No “Thus says the Lord.” No fresh revelation. Generations were born, lived, and died without hearing a prophet speak. Parents told their children the old stories—about Moses, David, Isaiah—but there were no new chapters being written. And when God feels silent, people don’t stop being spiritual. They just start filling in the gaps themselves. Silence bred speculation. Speculation bred fear. Fear bred control.

Some began to think, If God is silent, maybe He isn’t real.

At the same time, Israel lived under constant political oppression. They were passed from empire to empire—Persian rule gave way to Greek rule, which fractured into competing dynasties, until Rome finally crushed them all. By the time Jesus was born, Rome ruled with iron fists and wooden crosses. Crucifixion wasn’t rare; it was a warning. Violence wasn’t possible—it was guaranteed.

God’s people, who once had kings anointed by God, were now ruled by governors appointed by pagans. This wasn’t just political frustration; it was theological confusion. If God is king, why are we always under someone else’s boot?

As foreign powers ruled, foreign cultures followed. Greek philosophy and values reshaped language, entertainment, morality, and identity. Some Jews compromised their faith to survive socially. Others became rigid and hostile, withdrawing from anyone who didn’t look or believe like them. The community fractured between compromise and extremism—and neither reflected the heart of God.

One of the darkest moments came when the Temple itself was desecrated. Antiochus Epiphanes sacrificed a pig on the altar, erected a statue of Zeus in the holy place, and outlawed circumcision, Sabbath observance, and the reading of Torah. People were executed for obeying God. Mothers were killed for circumcising their sons. The place where heaven and earth were supposed to meet became unrecognizable.

That desecration sparked the Maccabean Revolt—righteous at first, but eventually corrupted by power. Jewish factions turned on one another. Religious leadership became political. High priests were appointed by Rome. Worship became transactional. Sacrifice became business. People came seeking mercy and left feeling managed.

To protect the Law, teachers added layers of extra rules. What God gave as a gift became a burden. Faith became exhausting. The poor, the sick, the sinners, and the forgotten were crushed beneath expectations they could never meet.

Hope fractured. Unity disappeared. Messiah expectations became distorted. People wanted a warrior, not a Savior. A throne, not a cross. Power, not peace.

This is the world Jesus entered. Not a peaceful nativity scene. Not moral clarity. Not spiritual health. Silence. Oppression. Corruption. Division. Despair. And into that darkness, Scripture says, “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light.”

God didn’t send a message. He sent Himself. That’s why John’s Gospel begins the way it does. John skips the manger, the shepherds, and the angels and goes straight to theology. He pulls the curtain back on what was really happening during the silence. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

Before Rome ruled. Before prophets went quiet. Before suffering and waiting—God was not absent. The Word existed. The Word was active. The Word was alive. And then comes the sentence that changes everything: “The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.” God didn’t shout from heaven. He stepped into the mess. For first-century readers, this was shocking. In Greek thought, flesh was weak and corrupt. Spirituality was about escaping the physical world, not entering it. But John says God didn’t just appear human—He became human. Hunger. Fatigue. Pain. Vulnerability. Mortality.

Then John uses a word that echoes the Old Testament: “dwelt”—literally, “tabernacled.” Just as God once dwelled among Israel in the wilderness, John declares that God has pitched His tent in human form. Jesus is the new tabernacle. God’s presence is no longer confined to a building or system—it walks among us. John says, “We have seen His glory.” Not in fire or cloud, but in a person. And that glory is defined not by power, but by grace and truth. This matters because many of us quietly believe something like this: If God is silent, He must not be real. Or worse—He must be done with me.

That feeling usually comes after grief. After unanswered prayers. After loss, diagnosis, disappointment, or long seasons of waiting.

But the silence between Malachi and Jesus wasn’t God stepping away. It was God stepping closer. While heaven seemed quiet, God was aligning history, hearts, language, and time. Silence did not mean absence. Waiting did not mean abandonment. Darkness did not mean defeat. “The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.”

God answered centuries of silence not with a rulebook, but with presence. Not with distance, but with nearness. Not by pulling humanity upward, but by stepping downward into our broken world.

So let me ask you gently: where does God feel silent right now? The same God who worked behind the scenes for four hundred years is still working today—even when you can’t hear Him yet. Silence doesn’t mean He’s gone. It may mean He’s closer than you realize. This Christmas, maybe the quiet isn’t emptiness. Maybe it’s the space where God is preparing to speak again.