For thousands of years, the people of God utilized the spiritual practice of lament to express their struggles and draw closer to the Lord.
Apart from liturgical worship, lament has fallen out of favor with modern-day Christians. I don't have any hard data on it, but my theory is that we prefer cheap confession and quick restoration, choosing whatever path of least resistance will allow us to fear better about ourselves as quickly as possible.
We don't like to sit with our pain and grief. We don't like to wrestle with the shame of our own mistakes and that is why lament is often neglected. Raw and honest lamentations won't write many best selling books or create very many hit songs for Christian radio.
When we survey our holy Scripture, we'll discover lament all over the place: Job, Psalms, the Prophets, and Jesus himself offers up laments. And what those examples reveal to us is that God uses lament as part of our healing process. God meets us in our lament and uses it to draw us back to himself.
Mark Vroegop, a pastor who did actually write a book on lament, defines it as "a prayer in pain that leads to trust." I also like Jacob Wright's description that lament grieves "a past of violence, a present moment of suffering and torment, and a future that does not have certain answers." (h/t Scott McKnight).
We prefer our quick-fixes and black-and-white answers. Lament offers none of that. But what it does offer is better. Because until we can come to grips with how truly awful the bad side of life is, we won't be able to fully appreciate how beautiful the good news of Jesus is.
So for the next few weeks, I'm going to share some of the key spiritual truths that the book of Lamentations specifically has to teach us. They are lessons and truths that we might otherwise miss if we try our own shortcuts past suffering.
The first is a self-evident truth, that it is ok to complain to God in our misery.
The fact that Lamentations is included in God's Word establishes this truth. This book - along with the plethora of other instances - reveals that we have the freedom to express our pain honestly to God.
It is a collection of poems written after the Babylonian exile of 587/6 BC. 587 was the culmination of Babylon's domination of Judah. It is forever etched in Israel's history because these conquering forces destroyed two locations once thought to be 'invincible' - the Temple and Jerusalem. Jerusalem as a capital and the Temple specifically were seen as symbols of God's abiding presence and protection. Two places that would never be touched by heathen armies. Judah had seen their northern counterparts succumb to invading armies. But that was different. The southern Kingdom had the proper Temple and the true throne of David.
Things didn't work out for Judah though. Their sins and rebellion went unchecked and they turned to political alliances time and time again rather than seek spiritual reform.
Lamentations expresses the raw emotion of desperation and horror after the atrocities of these events took place.
Lamentations is upfront about the 'cause' of all of this too. It recognizes that the people's sin brought this on themselves (1:18, 3:42-48). These were self-inflicted wounds and yet still they lament.
God didn't ignore their pleas. He didn't mock their prayers as 'too little, too late'. He heard them. He included them in Scripture and eventually he did bring them redemption - punishing their punishers and ultimately bringing Jesus the Messiah.
But don't miss the fact that Lamentations gives us permission to complain to God in our misery. He invites and encourages it. He meets us in all of it.
When you feel like you're drowning in your troubles, don't hold back and don't try to hold it in. Take it to God. He's a good confidant and a patient listener. And he'll answer our cries with his presence...and there will be nothing else that will compare.
