Good Friday--The "Dialogue of the Deaf?"

Have you ever been in a room that was so filled with sound that you couldn’t even talk to the person standing right next to you?  These are some of my favorite places…where it is SO difficult to have a conversation that you just use simple gestures…these types of conversations are called for at some sporting events…but especially auto racing…with the cars roaring around the track with no mufflers you barely can hear yourself think much less talk.  The gun range when the “light is green” and 4-5 people are shooting at once…it takes all the concentration you can muster just to keep your own head in the game, much less to make sense of what everyone else is doing.  Concerts…especially right in front of that massive wall of speakers and amplifiers, where every kick drum and bass note jolts your heart back into rhythm within your chest, and those screaming guitar notes seem to make your eyes, ears, and nose bleed for no apparent reason.  Yep…those are EXCELLENT times.

And then there are those times when you find yourself closed into a room with a few people and an argument breaks out…not of your making or choosing but you find yourself, for better or worse, right in the middle of it.  It escalates, now they are yelling while you are attempting to hear what both sides are arguing about.  And then it happens…there suddenly is SO much noise, and it is so loud and intense that no one can possibly hear what the other is saying because everyone is talking at the same time, and now it is not a single argument but a multifaceted, multi-layered, cacophony of intense sound.  One author called these moments the “dialogue of the deaf.”

Everyone is talking but no one is listening.  There is much going on that needs attention but chaos is ruling.  There are important points to be made but they are lost in the fuel to suddenly be the victor.  It is not just a war of words…more is at stake…there is so much dialogue…but everyone is deaf to everything but their own voice, their own desire, their own point, their own will.

As I have prayed, read, watched, and thought about something that I might add to the already tumultuous flow of information that has been put out there about “Good Friday”…I wondered…is everyone SO busy talking that no one is looking and listening?

"The View from the Cross" by James Tissot (circa 1895)

The silence must have been deafening, the Middle Eastern sun shone bright through the day but darkness seemed to loom on the horizon and it was MUCH too early for it be night coming on.  At the foot of the cross soldiers passed the time by gambling…just wishing that they had not been attached to the unit that was at Calvary that day (it would have been nice to be home early for the weekend!).  Others stood, watched, jeered, scolded, lashed out, gave up and went home when nothing of significance seemed to happen.  Those who loved him stood in horrified silence unable to take in the scene, and finding it hard to breathe as they held back the tears that so easily flowed from their now swollen eyes.  The members of the Sanhedrin stood firm, like solemn statues, silently glad that this had come to an end, the anger burned into their faces like hardened cement, chiseled there for everyone to see.  Elsewhere in the city, the background noises told everyone that life was going on, just like every other Friday.

The men dying beside him spoke. One heartless and with hatred chastised him, the other speaking to both of the men in process of dying beside him somehow got past himself to see the consequences of the story that he had become a part of…he knew his punishment was just, but he longed for another way.

As far as we know Jesus only uttered 7 sayings from the cross that day.  By most reckoning he was on the cross at least 6 hours.  That is about one brief phrase every hour or so.  When he did speak…he spoke volumes (not literally…but what he said was important…not to him as much as to us).

He tried to tell them, to show them, they were so busy talking it became the dialogue of the deaf…because they refused to listen.  Even on the cross their hardened hearts cause his words to fall on deaf ears.

I wonder.  In hindsight, there are theological things at play that made that a “good” Friday, but I wonder if today, we would pause to look at the cross, would we be so busy with US that we forget about him? After all these years is the dialogue still lost on those who have closed their auditory sensation for something more sensational?  The Easter event is more than a “happy ending” to a bad weekend (it has to be or God failed!). But on THIS Good Friday can we hear the voice from the cross or are we too busy with the dialogue of the deaf?

I believe, help me with my unbelief.