The Strong Silent Type

“But when the accusations rained down hot and heavy from the high priests and religious leaders, he said nothing.” Matthew 27:12 (The Message)

Good Friday is a week away as I write this. One of the scenes from those fateful last hours that is tattooed in my mind is this moment, Jesus standing absolutely silent in response to the High Priests’ questions.

I know at least two responses I would make if standing before someone who had my life in their hands. Knowing the accusations to be false, I am sure my first reply would be a vigorous defense along with a good dose of shock. I’m speaking of “me”, not “me if I was Jesus”.

“You know me. You guys may not like my style, but you know I’ve never done anything to incite violence or violate what is sacred. You haven’t always agreed with my words, but you certainly can’t believe these false charges. I’m puzzled myself, as to why people would trump up these accusations. For goodness sake, I even healed some of them!”

The second possible response would be silence; but not the Jesus kind. I tend to freeze up when brought before authorities. I admit I have a bit of fear of authority figures, especially those perceived to have some sway over my immediate well-being. Now is not the time to share my person psychoanalysis as to the reasons, but, for the sake of briefness, let’s just say I’ve done it before.

“Mark, were you fighting on the playground.” “Mmhh, hmm, buth, mebbe, shhh.” (That’s my attempt at writing out a mumbled response. “What happened young man. The teacher saw you take a swing at Duffy.” “Yes sir, but…” “Yes?” “Well, I did swing at him, but he pushed me off the stairs first,” my head hung, chin barely above my knees.

What I should have told the principal is that Duffy had been picking on me ever since third grade, (it was now sixth grade), and I finally decided not to take it anymore. But, without the guts to say any more, we both were required to write an essay on boxing. To this day I feel taken advantage of. I really figured my one swing was far less lethal than his three years of taunting. But, so be it; I wrote the essay. And stayed even quieter when having to deal with authorities.

Jesus didn’t answer back, we know that from the record; but He did stay silent. His silence was entirely different than mine. My quietness was from fear. Later, after becoming a Christian, I wrongly thought my “fearful” quietness when answering people’s questions was what Jesus expected. I finally found out I was wrong.

Jesus’ silence was the silence of a person who knows himself to be completely faultless and knows their self-defense would prove nothing in the long run. But, for Jesus, there is more, something deeper than the silent hero who bravely faces his fate. Jesus was silent because the High Priest and the religious leaders who were questioning him were not the authorities; He was.

No one in that courtroom wielded more power than Jesus Himself. He tells Pilate that even he would have no power to send Jesus to death unless God had granted it. We do not see a man loudly proclaiming his innocence or bravely refusing to give in to the game everyone else was playing. We see the Lord of All, God in human flesh, staying quiet for one reason: He was on a journey to the cross, not a judgment of not guilty. He would not allow His innocence to prevent our freedom.

Jesus’ silence is just the next step on His agenda for our deliverance. He answers nothing because there is no answer they will hear. He responds with silence because they need Him to be crucified, along with the rest of us. His lack of an answer is for the benefit of even those who were hurling abuse His way. Even then, I believe He was thinking, “They don’t know what they are doing.”

He did not reply because His silence brought the redemption of the world one step closer. The accusations, the abuse, the mocking and crown of thorns, the beating and the cross beam digging into His shoulder as He stumbled along the pathway to His execution: these were the march of true Victory, though we still have trouble understanding it.

We must squint ever so hard to make that moment appear the way it truly is. One man in that crowd amongst a rabble of accusers, two bedecked High Priests and a bevy of religious teachers with their dialect of authority oozing from every statement; but none of them had power at that moment. None, that is, but Jesus. Rome would not win. The Jewish law-keepers would not win. Satan would not win. Sin would not win and death would not win.

Victory was spoken in silence before a crowd who wandered in an upside-down world, thinking the ones asking the questions held the power. Instead, it was the Silent One, He who did not need, by anyone’s authority, to give an answer at all. And I, for one, am grateful for His silence, for it means He kept quiet for people just like me.