The film Silence (2016) by Martin Scorsese is a film meditation on faith and suffering, a testimony that tangles with the deepest questions of humanity: Where is God in pain? Why silence in times of greatest need?

Set in 17th century Japan, where Christians were brutally persecuted, Scorsese exposes a conflict that challenges the faith of the protagonists, Jesuit priests facing a spiritual crisis that will test not only their loyalty to the church, but also their personal relationship with Christ.

The film raises a storm of theological questions, with deep echoes that resonate in the souls of those who live out their faith in Christ.

But how does the gospel of Christ respond to the dilemma of persecution, suffering, and God's apparent silence? Scorsese, with his dramatic and provocative style, brings us to the brink of despair, but the cross of Christ leads us to a hope beyond immediate sight.

The Silence of God: a test or a trial?

The film presents priests Rodrigues and Garupe, who embark on a dangerous mission to find their mentor, Father Ferreira, who has disappeared amid rumours that he had apostatised.

When they arrive in Japan, they face the brutal repression of Japanese Christians, forced to apostatise by trampling on an image of Christ, under threat of torture and death. At the heart of this trial, Rodrigues encounters an experience that any Christian could fear: the silence of God.

Why do you forget us forever, why do you forsake us for such a long time? (Lamentations 5:20) The film spares no effort to show this biblical lament, which reflects the human sense of abandonment in the face of adversity.

But Christian faith recognises that God is never absent. His silence is not indifference, but an invitation to trust when answers are not evident. In Isaiah 55:8-9, the Lord reminds us, ‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways’.

Silence in the midst of suffering is not a judgement of condemnation, but a purification of faith. As gold is refined in the fire, so faith is tempered in adversity. Jesus himself experienced the silence of his Father on the cross, crying out, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me’ (Matthew 27:46).

That is the mystery of Christian suffering: the incarnate God also experienced the silence of heaven, but he was not forsaken. The resurrection was the final answer, the declaration that death and suffering do not have the last word.

What the film suggests as divine silence, the gospel proclaims as an opportunity to share the sufferings of Christ (Philippians 3:10).

The cost of grace: the cross versus apostasy

One of the most harrowing moments in Silence is when the priests are faced with the temptation to apostatise in order to save Japanese Christians from torture.

The dilemma seems insoluble: how to reconcile the call to follow Christ, even unto death, with the imperative of compassion for one's brothers? Here, the film delves into the muddy ground of ethics, inviting the viewer to question what it means to be faithful in extreme circumstances.

But the gospel leaves no room for moral compromise when it comes to the cross. ‘Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it’ (Matthew 16:25). The cross is not simply a symbol of suffering; it is the way of salvation.

Those who trample on the cross, even if moved by compassion or fear, reject the only source of eternal life. No act of apostasy, however small it may seem, can be justified before the Christ who died for us.

But there is a deeper theological truth reflected in the human anguish of Rodrigues and his companions. God's grace is free, but it is never cheap.

As Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in The Cost of Discipleship: ‘Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without repentance, baptism without discipline, communion without confession. Costly grace is the gospel that must be sought again and again, the gift that must be asked for, the door that must be knocked on’.

Like any believer under extreme pressure, Rodrigues is confronted with the reality that faith in Christ is not an easy choice, but a call to total surrender, even unto death.

But as the apostle Paul points out in Romans 8:18, ‘For consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us’.

True silence: The silent Lamb

Throughout the film, Scorsese plays with the idea of divine silence as an unbearable emptiness. However, the true silence, the one that resonates in the gospel, is the silence of the Lamb of God, who kept silent before his accusers.

In Isaiah 53:7 we read: ‘He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth’’.

This is the silence that sustains creation: the silence of the sacrifice of Christ, who instead of defending Himself, offered Himself in silence for humanity. In that silence of the cross, the greatest declaration of love the world has ever known took place.

The same God, who was apparently silent in the face of the suffering of Rodrigues and the Christians in Japan, had spoken definitively in Christ, in the most deafening act in history: the death of the Son of God for sinners. God's silence is not the absence of his love, but the fulfilment of his plan on the cross.

The film invites us to reflect on the limits of human understanding, but the gospel proclaims that God has already spoken through his Son: ‘God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son ’ (Hebrews 1:1-2).

The need for the cross in suffering

In Silence, Scorsese shows us the spiritual torment of those who desperately seek to hear God in the midst of their pain, but the gospel of Christ teaches us that even when God seems silent, he has already spoken through the cross.

Redemption does not come without suffering, but that suffering has been redeemed by the one who suffered in our place.

The real challenge that Silence presents is not only whether God is silent in the midst of suffering, but whether we are able to hear what has already been said on the cross. God is not silent; he invites us to look to Calvary, where silence became the most powerful voice in the universe.

‘Come to me, all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest’ (Matthew 11:28). That is the promise of the Christ who is silent before the accusers, but who cries redemption from the cross.

Samuel Arjona, violinist, composer, and author.

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