Advent 2024 : 5

This Advent, I am writing a series of reflections on what it looks like to be creatures made in the likeness of a Creator. Thanks to our sympathetic nervous system, we assess and respond to potential danger in fight, flight, freeze, or fawn behaviours; and my contention is that these embedded, embodied ways of being are grounded in the nature of God.

Having considered flight, and fight, let us turn to freeze, to being as still and silent as possible, in the hope that we go unnoticed.

Within the library we know as the Bible, there is an ancient piece of theatre, the Book of Job. In this play, the Accuser asks God’s permission to test Job’s character. Four friends come to him in his existential angst, and they discuss the nature of God. And God, who is not omniscient (because God flees from concentrated power) but who nonetheless has a pretty good idea of how humans, personally and collectively, behave (because God has been attentive to human behaviour for a very long time), comes as close as he dares, and, keeping silent and very still, listens in. Are these the kind of men in whose hands God might be safe?

A story of David, the ancestor of Jesus. Once, when the mad king Saul (God ‘has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts’) was hunting David down like a deer on the mountain, and David, with his fellow outlaws, was living in a cave near the Dead Sea – the lowest point on the face of the earth – Saul found himself caught out and needing to empty his bowels. For modesty’s sake, he steps aside, into the very cave where David is hiding from him. Laying his cloak aside to squat, David approaches, keeping absolutely silent, undoubtedly freezing at every sound that might reveal him, until he has Saul’s cloak in his hands, and cuts off the corner, before retreating again, as silent as before. Only once Saul has departed does David run after him, and keeping a safe distance between them, calls out the error of Saul’s ways: What have I done to harm you, O king?

Three stories of Jesus.

There is a story of Jesus asleep in the bottom of a boat in the middle of the lake in the midst of a storm. And the storm seems to symbolise all that is swirling around him. Crowds who want to make him their king by force. Demonic spirits who are agitated by his activity in their territory. And Jesus, keeping so silent and still he falls asleep in his hiding place.

Another story, of Jesus, having taken flight from those who plotted to kill him, finding refuge in Tyre, entering a house and not wanting anyone to know he was there. Keeping silent and still. This time, his cover is blown, by an observant woman, who seeks his help. Freeze behaviour does not always work.

And the time when Jesus’ relatives go to Jerusalem to attend one of the pilgrim festivals, but Jesus excuses himself from going with them. Later, he goes alone, right into the lion’s den, the concentrated powerbase that was the Temple, from where the glory of God had once taken flight and now dangerous again. For days, he hides in plain sight, keeping silent and still, unnoticed – yes, there were tens of thousands of pilgrims, and who notices the individual in the crowd? but everywhere else Jesus goes, someone recognises him.

Sometimes in the presence of threat, we decide to freeze while we keep monitoring, reassessing, the situation. To do so is to be Christlike, grounded in the nature of God.