The Necessity of Lament I. Introduction A. There is an expectation for lessons and sermons to be generally positive, happy, fulfilling, with the goal of making everything seem good and to make you feel better about yourself B. This sermon will not be generally positive, happy, or fulfilling, but will discuss the necessity of lament C. Micah 1:8-16, John 16:20-22 1. Lament was an expected response to distress, pain, agony, and suffering 2. Lament is not limited to the Old Testament; Jesus’ death would cause the Apostles to lament D. It may not be pleasant, but lament proves necessary 1. What is lament? 2. Why would lament prove necessary? 3. What happens if we do not lament? II. Lament A. Lamentation involves mourning: a display of grief or sorrow B. We automatically think of lamentation as done when someone has died, and the Scriptures attest to it (cf. Genesis 23:2, 2 Samuel 3:31, Luke 23:27) C. Yet the Scriptures expect the people of God to lament on many other occasions 1. In times of opposition from foes (e.g. Psalms 3, 13) 2. In times of distress (e.g. Psalm 4) 3. At the success of the wicked and the oppression of the poor (e.g. Psalms 9-10) 4. In the throes of illness (e.g. Psalm 30) 5. As a result of sin (e.g. Psalms 32, 51) 6. In the midst of betrayal (e.g. Psalm 55) 7. When confident YHWH has not justified your righteousness (e.g. Psalm 44) 8. When denouncing YHWH for not being faithful to covenant (e.g. Psalm 89) 9. Over half of the Psalms, in fact, are categorized as lament psalms, featuring some element of distress, requesting a response from YHWH 10. Could you imagine if over half of our songbook featured hymns displaying various kinds of distress, requesting relief, yet expressing trust in God come what may? D. A major form of lament remains lamentation over national tragedy and sin 1. The book of Lamentations is a series of laments, composed in tight, strict parallelism and featuring various forms of acrostics, expressing grief over the fall of Jerusalem, the death of so many Judahites, and the exile of the population 2. Lamentations is all the more powerful because it pours out visceral emotion yet always maintains that literary structure 3. Many of the Psalms are also attempting to come to grips with faithfulness to God in the midst of national tragedy, and the persistence of difficulties (e.g. Psalms 44, 89) 4. The prayers we read in and after the exile are haunted by the experience (Daniel 9:3-19, Ezra 9:6-15) E. One can even argue that the primary portrayal of Israelite history is lament! 1. In Deuteronomy 31:26-39, Moses forecasts Israel’s sinfulness, and the “Song of Moses” in Deuteronomy 32:1-47 is not going to be on the list of happy, feel-good songs anytime soon 2. The entire book of Judges is a testimony to the devolution into depravity which marked Israel before the kings 3. David is heroic but has his fatal flaw, and 2 Samuel 13-20, 24 is consumed by the disastrous consequences of his sinfulness 4. Yet, above all, 1 Kings 11-2 Kings 25 is one long lament over the faithlessness of Israel and Judah, providing an explanation why YHWH cast both into exile F. Lament remains a theme in the New Testament 1. Luke 23:27, John 16:20-22: lamentation over Jesus’ death 2. Matthew 5:4: blessing for the mourners, for they shall be comforted 3. Romans 8:31-39 is so very encouraging, yet Romans 8:36 quotes Psalm 44:22, right in the throes of lament 4. 2 Corinthians 1:3-11 is a poignantly powerful declaration of Paul’s confidence in God’s comfort, which he declares because of how much he needed God’s comfort in the midst of his deep despair while imprisoned 5. Philippians 2:25-28: Paul experienced sorrow for Epaphroditus in his illness; he had cause for joy when Epaphroditus recovered 6. It is hard to read 2 Timothy and not detect a note of lament for Paul’s condition 7. James 5:1-5: an indictment of the wealthy for the oppression they cause the poor to suffer 8. Thus, while the overwhelming message of the New Testament is to trust in God and hope in the victory in Christ, lamentable challenges will arise, and the expectation is to turn to God for comfort, support, and strength; nevertheless, the New Testament never proves dismissive of causes for lament, and neither should we! III. Why Lament? A. This whole conversation about lament is probably making you feel uncomfortable; we just don’t talk about these things B. We do well to stop for a moment to think and ask: well, why is it that we do not talk about these things? 1. Modern Western culture has a terrible fear of death, because death and the decay that leads to it are reminders of human limitation and frailty 2. Our culture literally idolizes the young and the beautiful; for those who are no longer young, no longer meeting the culturally desirable aesthetic form (if they ever did), no longer fresh, little room or space is given 3. The philosophical ethos of our culture is Epicureanism, a desire to avoid pain and cause as little distress and discomfort as possible; to this end, the worst thing in the world is to be uncomfortable, or cause others discomfort 4. Despite all of our technological progress, suffering, distress, pain, decay, and death remain constants; there is little appetite to deal with these things productively, and so most attempt to close their ears and eyes and pretend it is not there 5. At the same time we have the cult of positivity and happiness: an expectation to always be happy, or at least put on the happy face; the pursuit of “positive mental energy” is now its own religion 6. These attitudes have infected the church: as noted, there is no tradition of singing lament psalms; the unstated expectation is that everyone is fine and should keep up appearances; those who are suffering, in distress, etc. are not seen, and few care to see them, because it ruins the positive vibe 7. Who are the popular preachers? The ones who talk about how to live your best life; those who provide self-help platitudes; those with the feel good stories 8. Yet underneath it all is raging insecurity: youth does not last; health fades; distress and pain will come; we will have cause to mourn 9. Untold thousands, if not millions, are dying inside, saturated in pain which neither they nor anyone in their lives gives space to speak or address; the church rarely provides a refuge for such people, but only another venue in which to experience judgment and humiliation; I say this to our shame C. Lament, on the other hand, forces the lamenter to come to grips with his or her frailty, to identify their pain and/or deficiencies, and to own them for what they are 1. There is no guarantee that life will even be mostly happy; life can get really ugly 2. We live in a privileged world in which we can pretend that the ugliness of life is exceptional, and presume life will generally be great! 3. But the pain will come; the deficiencies are glaring; what will we do about them? D. At the same time, lament does not leave the lamenter wallowing in the mire; lament, as a cry of mourning, is its own confession that this is not the way things should really be, and looks to God for redress or mercy 1. If we leave ourselves in lament, nothing good can come from it; only nihilistic depression 2. Almost all of those lament psalms do not end in lament, but in faith: they give voice to the people of God to speak their trials, distress, and pain, and also provide them a way forward in faith and hope in God 3. After all, if we mourn, it means there is something good which we feel is lost, something honorable to which to aspire to have, something in which we hope IV. The Consequences of Neglecting Lament A. But what happens if we do not lament? B. What happens if we do not have a funeral? 1. Despite renouncing all sorts of other rituals, our society still enshrines the funeral as an important ritual marker 2. Is the funeral for the dead person? Of course not; they are dead! 3. Funerals are for the living, and they provide two essential services for all involved: a confirmation of the death of the departed, and providing all who knew the person and the family of the person the opportunity to recognize the transition of that person from life to death 4. What happens when there is no body? The moment of transition feels less real; without the visual confirmation, people are easily liable to maintain some kind of hope beyond hope that the person is actually still alive somewhere 5. But what would happen if the body is in the room but no one wants to acknowledge its existence? The body will begin to decompose, and the room will smell, and the environment will become toxic, and so it is with those who either cannot come to grips with the death of the departed or death itself C. In our personal lives, not giving space for lament when necessary is like not having the funeral and suffering from the putrefaction of the cause of lament 1. We can pretend everything is fine and good and healthy until we can no longer keep that up; and great is the fall of such pretense 2. People often turn to unhealthy coping mechanisms 3. What is the mid-life crisis but a fear of loss of youth and vitality? As opposed to lamenting what has been lost, and adjusting to the new reality, many throw away marriages, families, etc., in a vain quest to return to the fountain of youth 4. How many have gone down the road of addiction to cope with various forms of pain, misery, distress, or grief? 5. The more research is done into trauma and its effects, the more we learn of how devastating it can be, and mostly because it does not get addressed in healthy ways! 6. Will we see the body in the room for what it is, and consider how to lament and find a healthy way forward? C. A lack of corporate lament has just as many consequences, which we can exemplify with a comparison and contrast between Israel and Judah 1. As we noted, not only do we find instances of lament regarding the fall of Jerusalem in the Old Testament, we find that major sections of its historical narrative have been composed as if laments themselves, displaying the sinfulness and idolatry of the kings and people leading to exile (Judges, 1 Kings 11-2 Kings 25) 2. Have you ever read a history of any other nation that reads anything like the history of Israel? Perhaps only modern Germans reckoning with 1933-1945! 3. Perhaps this explains why the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel was not preserved (cf. 1 Kings 22:39): a standard political or socio-economic history of Israel would consider Israel under Ahab at its strongest, and Judah under Hezekiah at its weakest 4. We do not have to wonder what the alternative story would look like: the Judahites in Egypt provide it in Jeremiah 44:15-19: everything was fine and dandy in Judah, and then Hezekiah and Josiah reformed the religion and forbade offerings to other gods, and then the Assyrians punished us and the Babylonians exiled us 5. The northern tribes of Israel went into exile into Assyria according to 2 Kings 17:6-23, and there was no tradition of lamenting the people’s unfaithfulness to YHWH; within generations these Israelites assimilated into the populations of Assyria and surrounding regions, and experienced the fate of these areas 6. If the alternative story of Jeremiah 44:15-19 had become the predominant narrative for Judahite exiles, they would have ended up in a similar fate: they would have assimilated into the Babylonian population, and would have experienced its fate 7. What made some of the Judahites exceptional was their willingness to see the body in the room: to recognize how the idolatry of their fathers and themselves had led to the Day of YHWH they experienced, as the prophets had foretold, and to mourn and lament it 8. The historical prophets thus explained Israel’s history in light of the exile; the prophets of the exile and the return would speak in similar ways, as seen in Daniel’s and Ezra’s prayers, and in the introduction to Zechariah (Zechariah 1:2-6) 9. If they had not done so, the people would have found ways to glorify their ancestors, and the whole trauma of the exile would have been for naught 10. Israel did not lament, and all that remained of the northern kingdom were those who fled to Judah; some in Judah did lament, and they put their trust in God, and were delivered 11. Until the Judahites saw the body in the room, so to speak, in identifying and confessing the idolatry of their fathers and themselves as their great betrayal of their covenant with YHWH, they persisted in idolatry 12. When they identified the body, and kept reminding each other about the body, they ceased their idolatry D. What, then, happens if we neglect lament? We become the man beholding his face in the mirror of James 1:22-25 1. Lament begins with the recognition and confession of what is ugly, disfigured, unpleasant, odious, and difficult 2. That which would cause lament often stares us in the face, but it is always easier to pretend it is not there: we think ourselves more attractive, or better morally, than we really are 3. We thus walk around self-deceived, often perpetuating sin, suffering, abuse, and pain because we refuse to recognize our own complicity, weakness, and frailty 4. We then cannot address our own deficiencies, because we cannot tolerate seeing ourselves as so deficient; the body is putrefying, and the stink is everywhere 5. We also cannot truly see others, because we cannot get over our own insecurities and just project upon them our own pretenses; others are saturated in pain and we provide no balm for them (perhaps what Jesus is getting at in Matthew 7:1-4)? 6. And all of this because we cannot sit in lament of our failings! V. Conclusion A. As we have considered lament, we have used the metaphor of the funeral: the need to see the body and confess the existence of the body in order to accept the transition from life to death to maybe find life again B. If we do not see the body, and do not see the pain or suffering, we are effectively gaslighting those who are suffering and in pain; we are instead to mourn with them, seeing the body (1 Corinthians 12:26) C. Too many times the people of God have neglected lament, individually and corporately, to their own harm, and the harm of those who have suffered greatly D. And so we do well, right now, to lament and mourn! 1. We mourn and lament the sins we have committed personally; we have broken faith with God and with one another 2. We mourn and lament our inability or unwillingness to see others in their distress, pain, and grief, and our judgment of them in our own insecurities and projections 3. We mourn and lament how we, perhaps ourselves, or our fathers in the faith, have mistreated the poor, the marginalized, the sin-sick, the immigrant, the sojourner, and/or anyone else, treating them as if less than human, not seeing their value as people for whom Christ died 4. We mourn and lament how the people of God have treated women for generations, reckoning them as inferior, of less value than men, as purely objects for the gratification of men, and not considering them co-heirs of the grace of God 5. We mourn and lament how some have professed Jesus and sexually abused young men and women, some so boldly as doing so in His name, and the grave and lasting harm such acts have caused 6. We mourn and lament the legacy of white supremacy among the people of God, the justification of inhumane treatment of people of color, the alienation of people of color from people of white skin color, and the blindness of those who enjoy privilege in our modern society toward those who do not prove as fortunate as they 7. We mourn and lament all the times people sought compassion, relief, and hope from the people of God, but found only contempt, cruelty, and scorn 8. In all these things we entrust ourselves to God who forgives sin in Christ; we hope and pray for God’s comfort and strength for all who have suffered, and for the boldness and willingness to see ourselves for who we are, and others for who they are, and to humbly serve all in the name of Jesus E. In all of these things let us prove diligent to be willing to see “the body in the room,” the sins, pain, suffering, and distress which we would rather neglect or justify, to then lament and mourn over the “body”, so that the “body” can be buried and the people of God be restored to health! F. If we refuse to do so, can we ever find health and renewal in our relationship with God? What happens to those who go away from the mirror and forget who they are? G. May we recognize the need for lament, and prove willing to lament over our sins and difficulties, and glorify God in Christ! H. Invitation Scripture, Meditation, and Application 1: And there followed [Jesus] a great multitude of the people, and of women who bewailed and lamented him (Luke 23:27). Lament involves displays of grief and mourning. Most people associate lament with funerals and the dying. Such is an appropriate moment for lamentation. Yet the Bible also features lament in times of illness, betrayal, oppression, suffering, or even of sin, both individual and collective. Lamentation is an appropriate response to many challenges in life. May we trust in the Lord Jesus and share in the hope of resurrection! 2: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort; who comforteth us in all our affliction, that we may be able to comfort them that are in any affliction, through the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God (2 Corinthians 1:3-4). Lament is an uncomfortable topic for many people. You don’t often hear of lament in our society or even in the church. Our culture is afraid of death, desires control and power over everything, and bows down to the idol of positivity. Those who are enduring pain, difficulty, suffering, and other distress find little rest or comfort. It ought not be so among the people of God! May we comfort those in distress, trust in the God who provides all comfort, and obtain life in Him! 3: “Be ye not as your fathers, unto whom the former prophets cried, saying, ‘Thus saith YHWH of hosts, Return ye now from your evil ways, and from your evil doings’: but they did not hear, nor hearken unto me, saith YHWH” (Zechariah 1:4). The experience of the exile led many Judahites to lament their sins and the sins of their fathers. Their lament was a continual lament, and it served them well. Future generations did not commit idolatry as previous generations had done. Lament is a crucial part of our development and formation in faith. May we lament the sins and tragedies of life, and find life and hope in Jesus the Christ! 4: For if any one is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a mirror: for he beholdeth himself, and goeth away, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was (James 1:23-24). What happens if we neglect or reject lament? Like the one looking at his face in the mirror, we walk away and act as if we are not what we are. We may attempt to cope with the pain in many unhealthy ways. We may wish to deny the existence of the problem or minimize its lasting effects. As long as we do not mourn over our pain, our trauma, our sins, and the pain, trauma, and suffering we have inflicted on others, we will find it difficult to life according to a healthy faith. May we lament our transgressions and our suffering, and trust in redemption in God in Christ!