wednesday

and christ's last week continues...

Silence.

Silence.

We have not a single word from the Gospels on what Jesus said on Wednesday, or what he did -- but it prompts thoughts about the value of silence and sometimes solitude that we often forget. Silence in our prayers to listen, silence at church to ponder, silence in our lives to regenerate. Beginning with his 40 days in the wilderness, the Savior showed us the pattern and value of spiritual silence and solitude -- not as a constant thing, as some Catholic orders of monks and nuns do, but as a rejuvenative enterprise.

There is no way to underestimate the value of occasional silence, of the pause, of the coda. In the world of art, it is one of the strongest tools. In reading poetry, it is pivotal. In sculpting, it is essential. In painting, it allows perspective. And so on. In classical music, it is often the signal that the crescendo is about to come -- and that's what we have here on Wednesday. Knowing what was coming on Thursday and Friday, did the Savior need to regroup? Did he need to offer final words and counsel to those he loved -- his mother Mary, Mary-Martha-Lazarus, Mary Magdalene, the apostles?

Did he convey deeper doctrine to the Apostles to embolden them for the mission ahead? Will it be in the third set of scriptures to come from the Lost Tribes? Do we already have some of what he said in the Book of Mormon?

Then again, it is all the Latter-day Saints can do to follow the commandments and doctrine we already have. Time and again, Joseph Smith showed spiritual restraint by not conveying all that he knew, because he didn't want us to be condemned for not following higher laws and truths he knew.

So ... my personal feeling is that Wednesday was a quieter day than the marvelous teaching Tuesday. The scriptures say that he "taught daily" at the Temple -- Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. But I believe that because Tuesday was so doctrinally significant at the Temple and later at the Mount of Olives, that he particularly needed all the lessons to sink in with the Apostles. With the people, like the master teacher he was, he probably used repetitions to let the lessons of Monday and Tuesday take hold.

Then, too, on Monday and Tuesday, he was challenged to debate by the Pharisees and their ilk intending to discredit him. But Tuesday night, the debate was over for them. They made final plans to kill him, using the betrayer Judas to bring him to them away from the crowd. The Savior well knew this, and must have appreciated Heavenly Father's love to probably give him some or most of Wednesday to gird up his loins and take a breath, a pause of peace, less than two days before the agony of the Atonement that has saved all of us for a time, and the best among us for eternal life...