Infants do not enter this world quietly. If they do, something has gone tragically wrong. A healthy newborn will tell you in its own shrieking dialect all about the sudden and scary experience of being pulled out of the comfortable world of the womb, only to be exposed to bright lights and strange voices. And just as the newborn baby can’t help but announce his arrival into the world, so the Christian cannot keep from heralding the glories of the God who granted him a new birth.
There is a loudness to life. The activity of life generates all sorts of sound. From cries and conversations to commercial activity, from answers and arguments to agreements, a typical town bustles with the sounds of life. A ghost town on the other hand, may only give you the soft patter of a cliché, bouncing tumbleweed. But this contrast of sound and silence extends beyond the earthly realm, echoing into the unseen realm where life and death clash in loud praise and eerie silence.
There is a reason we call complete silence “dead” silence. The Scriptures tell us, “The dead do not praise the Lord, nor do any who go down into silence” (Ps 115:17) Sheol is pictured as a place of deep silence, in stark contrast to the heavenly realm wherein the seraphim do not cease to cry out, “Holy, Holy, Holy” (Is 6:3). The throne room is booming; the graveyard is voiceless.
In contrast to Sheol, the realm below into which the dead “go down,” Christians are citizens of heaven and are born from above. Filled with the Holy Spirit, they enter the world as new creatures in Christ and begin their new life by bursting forth with heavenly praise. They boldly declare the mighty works of God. They cry out to God for salvation. They have gone from the silence of sin-deadness to the life-songs of salvation. And so we should not be surprised that there is a loudness to the Christian life.
Take, for example, the book of Acts, which is anything but hushed. It begins with a birth—one that is, like all the others, marked by the loudness of life. The Church is born on Pentecost. There is a mighty rush of wind and a prayer service that is loud enough to draw quite a crowd. Throughout the rest of the book there is proclaiming, preaching, debating, mobs clamoring, crowds chanting, and public service announcements given on vessels on the verge of shipwreck.
Again, given the nature of the gospel, this makes sense. The proclamation of God the Son’s resurrection from the realm of dead silence is exactly that一a proclamation. And the heralding of a new king generates quite a raucous response throughout the book.
But the message is startling for reasons other than delivery and volume. The content of the message is jarring. The Creator of the world became man and entered into his creation as its Savior. His arrival and his work turned the world upside down. He ascended in visible glory to sit upon the throne of the universe. He now reigns until all of his enemies are dealt with.
Because of this, the commissioned ambassador of the King, the Christian, cannot remain quiet, “for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard” (Ac 4:20). He must sing too. Confession, praise, prayer, and evangelism—this is the loudness of the Christian life. The Lord’s Table is no quiet ordeal either: “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Cor 11:26). And what sound is there like the sound of a shared meal coupled with wine, brotherly love, and joy?
And so we live loudly. For we have been brought out of the realm of deathly silence and have been given the words of Spirit and life. On Pentecost, the Church was born, and all throughout the book of Acts you hear her cries. We should be unashamed to join that crying chorus. Little children can’t wait to tell you about something that excites them. They must share their newfound joy with you. And they aren’t afraid to tell you about it again and again. Surely there is something in that childlike simplicity for us to emulate as we proclaim the gospel and sing our Lord’s praises again and again. After all, to the children belongs the kingdom of God (Mk 10:14).
Have we been tempted to keep to ourselves and stay quiet? Have we fallen for the lie that to boldly proclaim the good news is something only done by the specially called who are brimming with zeal? Have we outsourced the joy of evangelism to others? Do we stand with lips closed instead of belting out the Psalms with boldness? Is our prayer life muted or minimal? If any of these things are true, may we repent and be stirred up by the Spirit who equips his people to sing even while in shackles (Ac 16:24–25).
Let us exult in the loudness of the Christian life, looking forward to the consummation of all things entering in like a burst of new life, accompanied by a chorus which rings, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain” (Rev 5:12). Yes indeed, worthy is the Lamb一who was like a sheep silent before the shearers, slain in agony, but then roared as the Lion of Judah in resurrection power at the mouth of a tomb . We now await his return in thunderous glory. It’s all going to be very loud.
Jason Svintsitsky lives in Batavia, Ohio with his wife and three children where he serves as an Assistant Pastor at East River Church. He holds an MDiv from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary along with graduate certificates in Hebrew and Greek Exegesis.