The Place of Lament in the Christian Life:
A Sermon about Sorrow and Change
a sermon on Lamentations 1.1-6
by David C. Mauldin
Westminster Presbyterian Church, Mobile, Alabama
“For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven,”
the book of Ecclesiastes tells us: “A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time
to mourn, and a time to dance.” We Christians do well to remember that and to
understand the place of weeping, mourning, and lament in the Christian life.
Lament—giving voice to the pain of your broken heart—is not something our
culture does well. The one place you find it is in our music. Some country, some
pop, and the blues express deep pain; and maybe that’s one reason they are so
popular. They reach people’s feelings. The problem is, we end up listening to
someone else describe something like what we feel. That can help. But when it
comes to giving voice to our own suffering … well, we are not very good at it.
Some cultures provide ways for people to express feelings of hopelessness and
despair. Ours doesn’t. Fortunately, Christianity knows how, and this is yet
another part of human existence where our faith can help us live more authentic
lives. Christianity knows what pain is, how it feels, and its overwhelming
power. Christianity knows that lament is not blasphemy, but rather it is one way
faith responds to loss and change. Christianity knows lament can be holy.
Scripture is full of lament. If we miss it, our eyes must be closed. God laments
the wickedness of humankind, then laments the destruction of the flood. David
laments the death of his rebel son Absalom. Jesus weeps when his friend Lazarus
dies, and he weeps over the city of Jerusalem when it is clear he will not be
received with faith there. Paul and the Ephesian elders weep when they part for
what they expect will be the last time.
One event in particular shows us the necessity and holiness of lament. I want to
mention it before we move into this morning’s scripture reading. I am thinking
of Easter morning. A few of the women who followed Jesus went to the tomb to
prepare his body properly for burial. Their culture knew how to lament. Death
was an occasion for weeping, singing, and the hands-on business of burial. In
this case, their grief was compounded by despair because of who Jesus was and
what he had meant to them—they had pinned their hopes to him—and because of the
cruel and violent manner of his death. They were not expecting his resurrection.
They went with tears and broken hearts to the tomb.
Now, a few questions: First, did they have a legitimate reason to lament? Yes,
they did. Sometimes sorrow is the most appropriate feeling given the
circumstances of this broken world. Sometimes you must have something wrong with
you if your heart does not break. This was one of those times. They had the best
of all reasons to grieve, and they did. Second, did either their grief or the
circumstances that caused it mean that God had failed them? They might have felt
that way. (Who could have blamed them if they had said, “Jesus wasn’t the One.
We thought he was, but why should we believe God will ever send a Savior? Why
believe God can or will do anything to help us? Maybe the Romans and the Greeks
are right. Maybe there are many gods, or maybe the divine is impersonal. Who
really cares anymore?”) From their perspective, it might have looked as if God
had failed, but in this case they would have been wrong.
God had not failed, all appearances to the contrary notwithstanding. Not only
had the Father raised Jesus from the dead—a fact about to take them by surprise
and turn their mourning into dancing—but also, in light of the resurrection, the
cross was not a disaster but a glorious act of God’s love and power.
So the women cried, and they needed to cry. It was right that they cried. Their
tears were holy tears. If they had not cried, it could only have been because
they did not love Jesus. And yet, although their tears and their broken hearts
proved something was not right with the world, they did not mean God had failed.
On to the book of Lamentations! If you are not familiar with this book of the
Bible, you need to be. You will not turn to it for pleasure or inspiration. It
is a graphic book full of anguish and anger. You will not read it to your
children, at least when they are little. When is a child ready for a book like
this? When he or she understands the reality of death and knows about war and
human cruelty. I’m not sure when they teach about the holocaust in schools, but
that would be about the time. Now you may be thinking, “Well, if it’s that bad,
why is it in the Bible?” And the answer is, because it is honest. Because the
Bible is honest, and so is this book. You won’t turn to it for an uplifting
devotional, but when you need it, it is there. When you are devastated, your
life in ruins, without hope, feeling abandoned by God—all that—when you get to
that place, Lamentations has something to give you that you cannot get from
anything less than complete honesty.
Lamentations is about the fall of Jerusalem and the beginning of the Babylonian
exile. I have mentioned these events enough that you ought to be familiar with
them by now. Remember, Jeremiah was God’s prophet during those horrible times.
The Babylonians invaded Judah, and after a lengthy siege, took the city of
Jerusalem. They tore down its walls and the temple, committed various
atrocities, and took most of the people away as captives. This was the
devastating experience behind the book of Lamentations.
Lamentations is a collection of five songs or poems reacting to this
catastrophe. (The five poems correspond to the five chapters in our Bible.) The
people of Jerusalem lost literally everything, not just their possessions, their
loved ones, and their freedom, but also everything that gave their lives meaning
and made sense of their existence. Some of them lost their faith in God. Once in
Babylon they assimilated as best they could and began to worship the gods in
vogue there. Others, however, did not. And these five poems are their cry of
despair.
Hebrew poetry does not translate well as poetry into English, but it is touching
to see in Hebrew how each poem is so carefully arranged. The first four are
acrostics, the first letter of each line being a letter of the alphabet in
order, as if the poet wanted to find some order amid all the chaos. Have you
ever felt that way? Life was so out of control that any semblance of normalcy
was welcome?
Only the third poem expresses hope. There we find the classic line: “The
steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they
are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ‘The LORD is my portion,’
says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him’” [3.22-24]. That is a lone bright
spot. Nevertheless, the whole book is a cry to God, and that too is a kind of
hope. Yes, it is despair and anger, but it is addressed to God because … Well,
where else can you turn when your world comes to an abrupt end?
A couple of notes on our specific reading. Look at verse 1. The pain comes not
just from the terrible suffering of God’s people but also from the height from
which they fell. They are not just poor; they are now poor but used to be rich.
They are not just slaves; they used to be masters. I am reminded of people who
lose their sight or hearing in their youth. They know what they are missing.
That is such a difficult emotional adjustment to make. Notice verse 2 also: “She
[Jerusalem] has no one to comfort her.” What is worse than any horrible thing
you might imagine? That same thing if you have to go through it alone. Loving
support means so much. It makes the difference. Having no one to turn to makes
anything worse.
So … Lamentations teaches us to pour out the pain and bitterness of our hearts
in song and prayer. A couple of warnings: First, prophets like Jeremiah blamed
the exile on the people’s sin. God’s people were stuck, and God had to take
radical measures to reform them. We find a lot of self recrimination in
Lamentations. You, however, cannot be so sure your suffering is because of your
guilt. Probably it is not. Just because you are suffering does not mean God is
punishing you. Look at Paul and all that he suffered. He suffered because he was
doing God’s will! God was pleased with him, but he suffered anyway. When you
read Lamentations, keep that in mind. What was true of the exile is not
necessarily true for you.
Second, you will detect in Lamentations a desire for revenge. That is perfectly
normal, though not really very Christlike. You might feel it yourself. Try to
overcome it, as God gives you the grace to do so. If you have been deeply hurt,
it will take grace to overcome it. You cannot do it without God’s help. And this
may be how Lamentations helps us the most. It gives us an example of pouring out
that pain in prayer. The poet tells God about all these troubles because God is
good and just and will not let this situation stand—not forever, hopefully not
for long. Your pain is the same.
Let’s move from the text now to our own lives and think about points of contact.
Where does Lamentations connect with our experience? I can think of many obvious
ways. When you lose someone you love to death, especially a spouse or a child—or
a parent if you are a child. A lot of people here know this pain. What about
when you get old and you lose your independence or mobility or your home? Some
here and many more who will read or listen to this sermon fall into that
category. Another one: when your family falls apart. You go through a divorce,
or you are a child and your parents do. This may be when we come closest to the
experience of exile. One day life makes sense; it has order and stability. The
next day you start from scratch again. Or consider the loss of a job or career,
especially one you have devoted your life to. We could think of a lot more. If
we lived in another part of the world, we might list famine or fleeing our homes
because of war. The circumstances are different. The human emotions are the
same: loss, pain, anger, grief, hopelessness, despair, confusion, displacement,
and more—or all of them to varying degrees.
What happens when your world falls apart? How can one hold together all those
feelings inspired by the brokenness of this world, without being overwhelmed by
them? Lament. The heart cries to God, and holy tears fall.
Question: What good does it do? Answer: Probably none. To ask that question is
to show you do not understand. You do not lament because you think it will help.
You lament because you can’t help it. What else can you do? Lament happens when
a heart full of faith gets crushed. It is not a strategy calculated to achieve
some desired goal; lament is just a place we find ourselves. What I am trying to
tell you is: It can be a place of grace.
Better question: How does lament fit into the gospel? How does the Good News
about Jesus shine forth from the book of Lamentations? In two important ways:
First, although God’s people returned to Jerusalem about 70 years after the
exile began, in a deeper sense the exile never ended until Jesus came. Yes, many
of God’s people went home and rebuilt their nation as best they could. But, they
continued under pagan domination for centuries. And, when Jesus came, they were
still waiting for God to keep the best of the promises he made through the
prophets. The prophets had preached the end of exile and the beginning of peace.
They said God’s glory would fill the earth, and all the nations would worship
the True God. Things like that. Much that Jesus did and said shows that he saw
himself as bringing an end to the exile. Those who thought the end of exile
meant Israel victorious over the pagans and happy and prosperous were thinking
too small. God had something bigger in mind: the renewal of all creation. God
will heal the brokenness of all creation. Think of the image of the tree of life
in Revelation 22; its leaves are for the healing of the nations. That’s poetry
again. What I am trying to say is this: The cross and resurrection of Jesus
stand in the center of history. In a very real sense, every sorrow finds its
meaning and answer there.
We lament because something is wrong. God has acted to do something to set it
right, whatever it is. On the cross he did what was necessary. He focused the
sin and pain of the world on one single point and took it on himself. By his
resurrection, he began new creation, not letting sin and pain have the last
word. And, when Christ comes again, he will put things right and make all things
new.
So the first way we see the gospel in Lamentations is this: We read these words
of heartbreaking agony, and we know they were answered by Jesus. He will answer
ours too. Second, we find that although lament has a necessary and important
place in God’s economy; God never lets it be the last word. Sometimes you cannot
help yourself. You have to lament. You may feel, like the poet of Lamentations
or like the women on their way to the tomb, that the darkness around you is
permanent. It is not. Jesus reveals God to us, and when we look at him, what do
we see? We see that God’s will is peace, joy, wholeness, and love. He may have
to discipline you to get you there. Or he may have to raise you from the dead.
Whatever he has to do, he will do. Psalm 30.5 says it well: “Weeping may linger
for the night, but joy comes with the morning.” …
I have tried to show you the place of lament in the Christian life, introduce
you to the book of Lamentations, and point to the gospel in it. One more thing I
need to do. I like to end sermons by offering something practical you can take
with you or do. This one is a call—a challenge.
God calls his people to be where the world is hurting. God calls his people to
feel the world’s pain. Jesus put himself right in the middle of our
suffering—from his birth to the cross and beyond. He was there; he is there. He
felt it; and he feels it. And, he sends his followers to be and to do what he
did.
To be where the world is hurting … we start by supporting one another. Nearly
every one of us knows profound suffering firsthand. We have to be there for one
another—to share the pain. We don’t want anyone to feel like the poet of
Lamentations who felt alone. There is no need for that.
Then we have to look out into our community. Hosting homeless families with
Interfaith Hospitality Network is one way we do this. Loaves and Fishes is
another. Christmas shoeboxes. Hurricane relief work. Local benevolences. The
coping with the holidays workshop. All that stuff is important. We meet our
community where our community is hurting.
And personally … as each of us is open to being used by God to encourage
someone. I knew a guy once, a fellow pastor, who always had the most remarkable
experiences. He met a stranger at an airport who happened to be struggling with
his faith. At a basketball game he met a couple with marital difficulties, and
they entered counseling with him. Everywhere he went that kind of thing
happened. Hurting people were drawn to him like iron filings to a powerful
magnet. I always wondered why. Now I think maybe it was because he was open to
them. Certainly the Holy Spirit was present in him and gave him a certain aura
of caring. It was his gift. But he was open to it. He not only was open; he
sought it. He paid attention to the people around him, and he looked for where
people were hurting. Not aggressively. He was gentle. But he prayed, daily,
“Lord, send me someone who is hurting today.”
Do we do that? You may not have the same gifts my friend did, but you are called
to the same place—the place where people are hurting. Pray that God will give
you the grace, first of all to let others share your pain, and then that you
might help someone in turn.
In conclusion, in this broken world, sometimes you have to lament. God knows
this, and he is there. The world is hurting, and he is there. He calls us to go
there too. Amen.