Recovering Lament

Cody Glover

The Psalter contains several types of Psalms, such as psalms of thanksgiving, hymns, liturgical psalms, and lament psalms. Sixty-five of the psalms (i.e., about 43% of them) are laments, making this the largest category. Yet, for what is clearly a very important part of the Psalms, very few seem to be familiar with the laments. They are largely absent from church life. Rarely will you hear a sermon preached on lament, and you will almost never hear a lament in public Scripture readings. The lament psalms are so much more than just belly-aching or dwelling upon our circumstances. Lament is a way of communicating deep emotion with God and connecting to Him in a profound way. Many Christians assert that the language of the laments is not faith-filled but doubt-filled. They say that those of faith should not complain and certainly should not question God’s presence or accuse Him of anything. We need to ask ourselves if we should conclude that about something that God considered important enough to include in His Word.

In the Psalms we see those known for strong faith bringing their most honest feelings to God. Men such as Moses, David and temple leaders like Ethan and Korah. We see connections between faith and lament in the lives of faith heroes outside of the Psalms. Jeremiah asks God why the guilty prosper and hisown pain is unending. Job also asks God about the prosperity of the wicked and curses the day of his birth after suffering great loss. We see Habakkuk complaining that God is doing nothing, then questioning how God could use such a terrible nation to punish his own. These men did not complain because they lacked faith, but because they had it in abundance.

The early church practiced lament. In the book of Acts, those burying Stephen “made loud lamentations over him” (Acts 8:2 NRSV). Contrary to what many say about Christ removing the need for lament, the Jerusalem church lamented for Stephen. We see the martyrs in the presence of God, practicing an extreme form of lament and begging God to take action (Revelation 6:10).

Jesus knows better than any of us about the resurrection and the afterlife. Lazarus was a friend of Jesus’ who became sick and died while Jesus was on the road. When Jesus arrived at the tomb, he was overcome with sadness, even knowing that he was about to resurrect Lazarus. He felt pain for Lazarus and for his sisters. The Bible tells us that “Jesus wept.” (John 11:35 ESV). Immediately after the Triumphal Entry, Jesus drew near to Jerusalem and lamented over its future. The book of Luke says, “And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it,” (Luke 19:41 ESV). When hung upon the cross, he quoted words of lament from Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46 ESV).

All of this shows that, although we know eternity with God awaits those who are in relationship with Christ, employing lament when we, or someone we know, are suffering is appropriate. I would even argue that those who lament, who question God’s actions and even His goodness, do not lack faith but have a deep and authentic faith.

The laments teach us how to deal with our hardships and about our relationship with God. If nothing else, the lament psalms teach us that God wants us to be honest with Him and speak plainly. It does not honour Him to pretend that everything is okay when it is not.

Lament is really about a strong desire for a continuing and deepening relationship with God. In most cases, the speaker laments because their faith has grown to expect things of their relationship with God. If all we ever do is praise God for our blessings, and never lament, we are missing out on a much fuller relationship with God. He does not want two-faced flattery. Either He is an intimate friend to whom we can speak honestly, or He is not a friend at all. Contrary to popular thought, a mark of true deep faith is the ability and confidence to speak to God about these things in the plain language of lament. Knowing the purpose of lament and its results only takes us so far. We are trying to revive a dead language and that is going to take practice and caution. We do not want to go too far in the other direction and become all about lamenting. We need to use wisdom in discerning correct timing and location, as well as being aware of how our lament may affect others.

How we view God will determine how we use lament. Is God someone whose heart breaks when ours do? Is Jesus the man who suffered horribly for us and certainly understands grief and pain? Does God like plain speech or does He prefer endless compliments and lots of fancy words? If we truly trust God, we will entrust Him with our true feelings and not try to hide or ignore them.

Our view of the church will also influence us. To many, church is a place where you make yourself presentable. You have to look put together, have a smile, act happy and like nothing ever goes wrong. When someone at church asks how you are, do you feel invited to tell the truth or do you feel the need to simply say “good?’ If the latter, then learning how to lament likely will not go very far. It is very depressing, but to many who are in pain the most difficult place to go is church.

The way we understand our relationship with God is also important. We need to be prepared to risk everything in our relationship with God and we need to be ready to risk relying on Him. For lament to work we need to understand that a relationship is two-sided. In a healthy relationship both sides give of themselves and expect certain things from the other person. It is crucial that we stop treating our relationship with God as one sided, stop thinking that only He can expect anything. God wants a real relationship, not a facsimile.

If we want to recover the lost language of lament, we need to change our thinking. We need to start thinking of God as someone who cares deeply for us and fully understands what we are going through. We need to see that God desires honesty and hates deception, including about our feelings. Second, we need to view the church as our family; we have to go beyond simply saying it and start living it. We need to truly care about each other and what is going on in others’ lives. Finally, we need to see that we are in a real relationship with God and that we are allowed to expect certain things of that. If we change our thinking in these areas, we will find it much easier to speak plainly about our suffering and express those feelings through lament.