Half an Hour of Silence

Six seals had been opened.

With each one, something moved in heaven. Voices. Living creatures. Great crowds saying great things.

Heaven had never been described as quiet.

Then the seventh seal.

And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.

Silence.

In a place that had been full of the sound of angels and elders and creatures crying Holy, holy, holy without ceasing.

Silence.

Half an hour.

Not a moment. Not a breath. Thirty minutes of absolute stillness in the place that had never been still.

What do you do with that?

The theologians had written many pages about this silence.

Some said it was the stillness before a great storm. That heaven itself was holding its breath.

Some said it was the weight of what was about to be released pressing down on everything that could hear it.

Some said it was the appropriate response to the seven trumpets that were about to sound. A holy pause before the worst of judgment was unleashed.

The seven angels who stood before God were given seven trumpets.

Another angel came with a golden censer. Incense. The prayers of all the saints rising before God.

Then the angel filled the censer with fire from the altar and cast it into the earth.

Voices. Thunderings. Lightnings. An earthquake.

The silence was over.

But what it had communicated in its half hour of absolute stillness was something no voice could have said better.

That some moments are too large for sound.

And when heaven goes quiet, the earth should pay very close attention to what comes next.

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