Day 37

Why doesn’t he say anything?  Why doesn’t he protest the way he is being treated?  Why doesn’t he defend himself?  Why doesn’t he fight back?  His silence, his non-resistance, confirms what we’ve always believed–he’s weak.  (Isaiah 53)

Or maybe he’s just been beaten down so long that he figures, “what difference is protesting going to make?”  Or maybe he has sized up the situation and knows his fists are no match for the guns pointed at him.  Or maybe there is a power in silence that we are not aware of.

Fire needs fuel–wood and oxygen.  Once the wood is gone, the fire burns itself out.  Once the oxygen is gone, the fire cannot sustain itself.  The servant’s silence sucks the oxygen out of the room.  There is no fuel for the fire.   How often we add fuel to the fire by our reactions and responses–the timely insult, the sarcastic barb, the witty comeback, the punch in the face.  Our response only justifies more aggression.  Silence has the power to extinguish the violence.