In the Old Testament, we read about how the Israelites were God’s chosen people. At times, they must have looked at their circumstances and their history and said, “God’s chosen people? What good is that? We’ve been slaves to different empires, we’ve been defeated and oppressed, we’ve suffered. If we’re His chosen people, we don’t have anything to show for it.”

By the time the New Testament came around, Israel had been feeling that way more or less for 700 years. Isaiah recorded the Israelites complaining that they had been deserted and forgotten by the Lord. Through His prophet, God told them, “Never! Can a mother forget her nursing child? Can she feel no love for the child she has borne? But even if that were possible, I would not forget you!” (Isaiah 49:15 NLT).

God was saying, “Do not allow your faith to become the casualty of your circumstances. Do not allow your faith to become the casualty of your feelings.” Circumstances can turn your convictions into questions and doubts. In dark times, we question the things that we firmly believed in the light.

Israel had struggled with their faith before. They had struggled with it when they were Hebrew slaves in the land of Egypt. They had struggled with it when they were exiles in Babylon. They struggled with it again in the 400 years between the Old Testament and the New Testament. In that time, God sent no prophets, no signs, and no miracles. They heard not one word from Him. In that time, their circumstances get worse. The Roman Empire swallowed up the area, and in that transition, control of Israel changed hands 25 times. Israel was sometimes a punching bag for the Empire and sometimes a bone of contention between different leaders. It was a troubled time.

Around 168 BC, Antiochus Ephiphanes took control of the land. He was insane and believed that he was God manifested in the flesh. He despised the Jews and their customs, their religion, and their scriptures. He did everything he could to break their spirit. He sacrificed a pig, the epitome of uncleanness to the Jews, on the altar in the rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem as an offering to Zeus.

In 63 BC, Pompey, who was a great Roman general and a friend of Julius Caesar, arrived in Jerusalem. He killed 12,000 Jewish people in the streets, then rode his horse up the steps to the Temple. He entered the Temple and went behind the curtain into the Holiest of Holies. This was the most sacred place to the Jews, where the presence of God was said to dwell. It was a place that if you dared to enter, you would die. Pompey, however, came back out alive and laughed, declaring that no one was there. For many Jews, that was the death knell for their faith. Everything they had ever been told seemed a lie.

When the New Testament opened, it had been 400 years since anyone had heard a word from God, 500 years since there had been a miracle, and 500 years since a descendant of David had sat upon the throne. In the midst of all that silence, one question was loud. “Where is God?”

The answer: everywhere.

In the shadow of every empire that rose and fell in that time (and throughout all of time), God was there. God was connecting the pieces of the puzzle. When the Babylonians took the Israelites into exile, God was in control. When the Israelites returned, God was in control. When the Babylonians fell and the Romans took control, God was setting all those pieces into place.

The Apostle Paul acknowledged all this work that was done in that time of silence by saying, “But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son” (Galatians 4:4 NIV). God had been at work throughout the 400 years that seemed silent. He was busy bringing the world to the cultural, political, and religious climate where the situation was just right for the birth of His Son, Jesus. He had maneuvered the kings and kingdoms of this world to set the stage so He could introduce us to a King and a Kingdom not of this world.

God may sometimes seem silent, but He is never absent. We can trust that God is working in the background, no matter how messy or dysfunctional our circumstances may seem. Everything is being worked out to God’s will. That was true of the first Christmas and the 400 years of silence leading up to it, and that’s still true of our lives today.