Silence

It has happened to me more times than is worth remembering.  A sea of people clad in blue and green and white surrounding a stretcher.  Often some shouting and running around the room is involved.  There are all these machines up at the head of the stretcher.  They're flashing red and yellow and making all kinds of strange loud noises. There's someone who looks like they're jumping up and down on top of the person on the stretcher--sometimes I'm that person.  Everyone and everything is making noise--it's so loud.  A machine gets wheeled into the room, the jumping stops and a black and white image appears on the machine.  Someone says "I see no movement."  There's agreement among the sea of people.  Sometimes the jumping starts again for a while before it stops and they look at the screen again.  "No movement."  "Ok, any objections?"  "What's the time?"

Someone just died.

Suddenly the squawking ventilators and monitors are turned off.  The hissing of the suction and the oxygen cease.  The crowd of doctors, nurses, and technicians leave the room quietly.

And I'm left with another nurse, a white shroud, a closed door, and....silence.

But there is always one particular verse that has come to mind during those times.  Those times when I just want to do my job, wrap up the deceased, clean up the room, and move on to the next patient.

It's the same verse that came to Sydney Carton as he walked about the streets of Paris the night before he was to take Charles Darnay's place under the guillotine.

It's the same verse that came to me as I was moved to speak the gospel to an old and dying man not long ago.

I am thankful that I don't just hear this verse at funerals or when I get to the chapter in my Bible reading.  When all the sights and sounds fade away and all I'm left with is a dead body, a shroud, and someone to help, I'm often at a loss for words to say.  It seems that my theology goes down the drain while I ask "why?"  It's in the silence when the mind is grappling with reality that Jesus speaks the last word.

Jesus said..."I am the resurrection and the life.  He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.  And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die.  Do you believe this?"

What is He saying to you in the silence?