“When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.

There was silence for half an hour. I have never known silence. If you can hear, then you’ve never known real silence either. I have no idea what silence is like. I know a relative quiet, but not silence. Even at night after everyone is asleep, the house has settled, the appliances and electronics are turned off, I’ve succumbed to my need for sleep, and the night has wrapped itself around me, my ears still ring with the sounds of the day. I have only a few moments before Karl starts to snore and neighborhood dogs bark. My few moments of “silence” are quite noisy. Even the noise of my own thoughts invades the silence.

From the Elizabeth Eliot devotional I received this morning:

I think C.S. Lewis puts his finger right on it in The Screwtape Letters, which purports to be the correspondence between Screwtape, under-secretary to the devil, and his nephew, Wormwood, instructing him in the best ways to tempt the followers of the Enemy, God:

“My dear Wormwood: Music and silence–how I detest them both! How thankful we should be that ever since our Father entered Hell–though longer ago than humans, reckoning in light years, could express, no square inch of infernal space and no moment of infernal time has been surrendered to either of those abominable forces, but all has been occupied by Noise–Noise, the grand dynamism, the audible expression of all that is exultant, ruthless, and virile–Noise which alone defends us from silly qualms, despairing scruples, and impossible desires. We will make the whole universe a noise in the end. We have already made great strides in this direction as regards the Earth. The melodies and silences of Heaven will be shouted down in the end. But I admit we are not yet loud enough, or anything like it. Research is in progress.”

I have often wondered about that part in John’s Revelation when the seventh seal is broken, “And there was silence in heaven for about half and hour.” I have heard several interpretations of this verse: we are worshipping in awe of God, we are in stunned silence with what our eyes are beholding. I’ve even heard this verse used jokingly as proof that there are no women in heaven.

Perhaps this time of silence is for our healing, to retune our ears and minds. A blessing of God on our ears after a deafening lifetime spent on earth. I read somewhere the idea that the things we see and hear in this world–what we call reality–are mere shadows of true reality. Our ears may need to bathe in silence as preparation for the hearing of true sound–the sounds of Heaven. What is more, the melodies of Heaven.

It amazes me that not even the loudest noise Hell can conjure will be heard over the blanketing silence of Heaven.

I have a feeling that my upcoming half an hour of silence will be the most blessed sound I have ever heard.