Struck Silent...Mostly

My throat started hurting Saturday afternoon, and as the hours passed it grew more and more garbled and graveled and hoarse. It was pretty bad by Saturday night when our favorite ex-babysitter and honorary daughter was at our house for a few hours, back home from college for the weekend. She suggested lip syncing the sermon on Sunday, then with a gleam in her eye said I should speak a little too fast so I "look Japanese." Of course I didn't tape the sermon and lip sync.

But if I were the superstitious sort, I would wonder at why I was virtually silenced on a Sunday morning...and it's not the first time. It happened twice within two months at my previous call the summer before I received the call here. I've never lost my voice during the week since I've been a pastor--only on Saturday nights and Sunday mornings.

Zechariah was struck silent because he did not believe the promise of his son, the Forerunner. But Ezekiel was struck dumb as a reproof to Israel. Daniel was struck dumb when the angel appeared to him. Now to be sure, I saw no vision, nor did I doubt a promise of God...at least no more than any of us do when we worry about problems. And I wasn't exactly dumb; I could speak, but not very loud, and it sounded terrible, and I wonder how many people were able to hear and understand what I was saying. I'm sure they couldn't understand the prayers and were only able to follow the liturgy because they had service books.

On second thought, I don't think it's superstitious to wonder why I had laryngitis on a Sunday morning. Superstition explains that inanimate things control the present and future, or that fate or something else attaches significance to common objects and occurrences. I don't believe in that, but I don't believe in coincidences either.

But I can't say why exactly I had laryngitis on a Sunday morning. But as I've written here before, it is a sign for me and for all of us to repent and pray for mercy. It always is.