Lament is all over the Bible. All our prophets lamented. Many of them had no one else to go to but God Himself. About 40 percent of the Psalms are straight-up lament, and if we count the Psalms that have laments sandwiched within them, we go up to 70 percent. That’s a lot of lament!
Those who have no hope do not go to God. They think God, (if they even believe in Him) does not hear them, or worse, does not care. I am reminded of a Dave Matthews song, Grey Street, where the character in that story prays, even though they fear God, if He is even there, is not listening. The belief that God does not care about you and your struggles, can plunge one deep into darkness and the absence of light grows more pronounced with each passing day. That is the foundation of despair and hopelessness, to believe there is no one to turn to, no one bigger then ourselves that could rescue and comfort us in our trial. The pain of that unbelief can be unbearable!
I cannot imagine living in that type of belief for an extended period of time. But there is good news, available to all who acknowledge Jesus Christ as their Savior and King. There is comfort, grace, kindness, hope, protection, provision, and so much more that Jesus longs to give us as we walk in the growing darkness of this world.
But why do you think lament is important for Christians to do?
Christians have a habit of thinking Sunday morning worship is a vacation from the hardships of the week. Or they think God only wants thanks and praise, so bringing our sorrows, griefs, and cries for justice to God are not appropriate. Scripture shows us the opposite in the Psalms.
We should lament to be comforted, bear one another’s burdens, be vulnerable and experience intimacy with God, know the character of Jesus—the Man of Sorrows—to be honest with God about our own sins, seek healing, remember God’s goodness, and recover joy.
N. T. Wright wrote, "As the Spirit laments within us, so we become, even in our self-isolation, small shrines where the presence and healing love of God can dwell.”
In the book of Psalms, we see lament take various shapes and forms, for example:
1. Lament is a form of praise.
Old Testament scholars estimate that two-thirds of the psalms are laments. Yet the title of the compilation is “praises”. How could a collection which includes so many complaints be considered praise?
It’s helpful to define our terms. In common usage, the words lament and complaint are interchangeable. But in the Scripture, complaint and lament occur in different contexts and can be distinguished as different concepts. In the wilderness, Israel complained to God about the lack of bread and meat and water (Exodus 16-17). They assumed the worst about God: He wants to kill us! The people who had been dramatically rescued from Egypt and saved through the Red Sea turned on their Rescuer, painting Him as the villain. Their complaints were actually a way of putting God on trial; they were “testing” God. But in the psalms, Israel asks God to answer according to His unfailing love, because He is a God of justice and righteousness, and because He has been faithful in the past. By contrasting Israel in the wilderness with Israel in worship, we can say that a complaint is an accusation against God that maligns His character, but a lament is an appeal to God based on confidence in His character.
2. Lament is a proof of the relationship.
Israel brought their lament to God in the psalms on the basis of His covenant with them. These prayers and songs were not vain attempts to convince a distant deity to notice them. They were not like the priests of Baal, dancing and cutting themselves to conjure a response. These were a people whom God—the sole sovereign creator—had called His “firstborn”. In fact, the act of pleading with God was a manifestation of their belief in the goodness of their Father. A result of the relationship and care they expected from God. And they were asking their Father to act accordingly.
The reverse of this scene is tragically described by Dr. Russell Moore in his book, Adopted for Life. Moore describes going to an orphanage in Russia as they were in the process of pursuing adoption. The silence from the nursery was eerie. The babies in the cribs never cried. Not because they never needed anything, but because they had learned that no one cared enough to answer. Children who are confident of the love of a caregiver cry. For the Christian, our lament, when taken to our Father in heaven, is proof of our relationship with God, our connection to a great Caregiver.
3. Lament is a pathway to intimacy with God.
By laying every emotion and every experience before God, their covenant God, the psalmist was reinforcing a bond of intimacy, affirming an attachment. Just as God made covenant with Abraham by the breaking apart of animals, so Israel embodied the bond of the covenant by breaking open their hearts before God. The Torah was organized into five books of God’s instruction—His word to His people; the Psalms are organized into five books, guiding us in how to “answer God”. The God who speaks calls us into relationship. Lament is one of the ways we respond.
4. Lament is a prayer for God to act.
Lament in the Bible is not simply an outlet for our frustrations. Though venting may be proven to be beneficial in and of itself, a lament is a form of prayer. And prayer is not passive. Many of the laments in the psalms are calls to action. They plead with God to pay attention to them and to act on their behalf. The psalmist appeals to God’s character and covenant and asks for His attention and action.
The New Testament takes us further. When Jesus taught His disciples to pray, He wasn’t giving them a mere formula, nor was He giving them a fixed set of words to utter in times of trouble. No, He was inviting them to participate in the arrival of the Kingdom. As Professor Wright has said, “when we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, then somehow, God is praying within us for the pain around us”.
5. Lament is a participation in the pain of others.
Lament is not only for the suffering; it is for solidarity with the suffering. We love our neighbor when we allow their experience of pain to become the substance of our prayer. This, after all, is what Jesus did for us.
Lament is not our final prayer. It is a prayer in the meantime. Most of the lament psalms end with a “vow to praise”—a promise to return thanksgiving to God for His deliverance. Because Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, we know that sorrow is not how the story ends. The song may be in a minor motif now, but one day it will resolve in a major chord. We are living, if you allow me this simple example, in the second act of God's timeline. Most movies and books describe a culmination of events where the heroes face overwhelming odds, or they are so beaten down that their abilities and motivation to continue are in doubt. Yet . . . when every tear is wiped away, when death is swallowed up in victory, when heaven and earth are made new and joined as one, when the saints rise in glorious bodies…then we will sing at last a great, “Hallelujah!” We will have passed through the second act and arrive at God's glorious outcome, never to regress into pain and suffering again!
So, for now, we lift our lament to God as we wait with hope. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
