Singing & Silence
In Zechariah 2, we find a glorious prophecy concerning the coming of Christ, which reads,
“Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion! For behold, I am coming and I will dwell in your midst,” says the Lord. “Many nations shall be joined to the Lord in that day, and they shall become My people. And I will dwell in your midst. Then you will know that the Lord of hosts has sent Me to you. And the Lord will take possession of Judah as His inheritance in the Holy Land, and will again choose Jerusalem. Be silent, all flesh, before the Lord, for He is aroused from His holy habitation!”
What I want you to notice this morning is the bookends of this passage. Notice these two responses to the coming of the Lord. We first have the command to celebrate—“Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion!” But then we end with the call to be still—“Be silent, all flesh, before the Lord, for He is aroused from His holy habitation!”
In these two admonitions—to sing and to be silent—we are instructed in how we are to conduct ourselves during Advent and Christmas. For during this season, in various ways, we turn our hearts to ponder and meditate upon the most magnificent mystery of our faith—the coming of our Lord in the Incarnation. This is not some minor doctrine or common fact—but the center of our confession and the center of all reality.
And so this season is a time of great fun and activity. Of parties and presents, lights and treats, family and friends—and of course singing. These are all great and glorious gifts—if we rightly use them to cultivate true and reverent joy before the Lord. But we must not let them crowd out Christ. And we must not forget the other gifts of occasional silence, moments of meditation upon what exactly we are celebrating with our families.
God the Lord has been aroused from His holy habitation. The Son has come to dwell forever with man. And this truth should, at times, cause us to fall silent and simply stand in awe. As our next hymn begins…
“Let all mortal flesh keep silence,
and with fear and trembling stand;
ponder nothing earthly minded,
for, with blessing in His hand,
Christ our God to earth descendeth,
our full homage to demand.”