When you think of the Psalms, what comes to mind? Perhaps the triumphant lines of poetry sung by God’s people, the meditations on God’s goodness and faithfulness, or thanksgiving for abundant blessings. But amongst so many well-known verses of praise lie the cries of people suffering and questioning the reason for the evil around them. In fact, over a third of the psalms are like this, what we call psalms of lament. They are prayers of pain, confusion and anger that draw attention to what’s wrong with the world – in the lives of the individual writer and wider society – and call on God to do something about it.
In fact, lament is found throughout the Bible (and there’s a whole book dedicated to it- Lamentations). Donning sack cloth and pouring ashes over your head was a normal response to witnessing evil and injustice in the scriptures. Most movingly, the Bible depicts the Trinity as acquainted with sorrow and joining His people in lament: God’s heart was deeply troubled (Genesis 6:6); Jesus wept over the city of Jerusalem (Luke 19:41) and when His friend died (John 11:35); Christ cried out on the cross with the lament of Psalm 22, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46); and the Holy Spirit is described as praying for Christians with “groanings too deep for words” (Romans 8:26).
Have you ever sat with your big questions about the state of the world and asked God, why? Have you ever cried out to Him over the pain or inequality that exists in your community and overseas? Did you know you have permission to? What might seem like a despairing complaint or faith-less questioning of God is a practice that is not only permitted in the Bible, but is seen as a good and virtuous way for God’s people to both process and protest the suffering and injustice in our world and to enter into trust and hope. Lament is a divinely affirmed invitation.
Lament is also honest, raw prayer. It strips away our religious, superficial expressions of faith – laying bare our sorrows and griefs and placing them before God. Rather than deny our emotions or cry out into the void, God allows us to bring every personal pain, question about injustice and frustration over suffering to Him. Take Psalm 10, in which the author vents frustration at the oppression of the vulnerable and how the greedy and unjust prosper: “Why, Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? In his arrogance the wicked man hunts down the weak, who are caught in the schemes he devises.” The Psalmist not only processes his questions and frustrations, but protests against what he knows isn’t right and calls on God to intervene: “Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up your hand; forget not the afflicted”.
As an art form, Psalms were designed to be read slowly, to be meditated on. In our culture that encourages positivity and rose-tinted-glasses, the Bible shows us that it is ok to feel deeply, to grieve slowly and to process uncomfortable emotions and heavy questions. Afterall, lament psalms took time and thought to construct. Their writers must have dwelt in their pain and questions long enough to carefully design a poem.
You don’t have to look far to see what’s wrong with our world and to find a reason to lament, especially during this time of crisis in our world. Millions of people are grieving, the newly unemployed are joining queues at food banks, disruption to global supply chains is leaving workers in the global south jobless without social security, and the virus is beginning to spread in refugee camps where social distancing isn’t possible and water and sanitation are poor. All of this, whilst injustice issues which existed before (and will exist after) this crisis continue unabated. It is right that we should lament these things. We should be frustrated at the greed and consumerism that has twisted our global economies to perpetuate inequality. We should weep for those who are enduring hunger, poverty and discrimination. Lament for modern slavery, famine and racism; lament for climate refugees, orphans and the existence of slums.
Lament.
A rather bleak command, you might think? Perhaps, at first. The process of lament might be a painful one, but its purpose is to be a cathartic springboard into hope. The fact that we are able to protest the state of world points to the fact that we believe it should be better. It is precisely because of the hope we have for a world where justice reigns that we lament. John D. Witvliet puts it like this: “When we think about the coming kingdom of God, we can't help but long for an end to warfare, abuse, hunger, violence, illness, and death. Liturgical lament is our expression of this longing. As such, lament is not whining or complaining like that of the fickle Israelites in the desert. Rather it is the expression of the groaning that we feel as we long intensely for the coming kingdom of shalom.”
Remember the author of Psalm 10 who seemed so downcast and doubtful in verse 1? By the end of his lamentation, he has renewed confidence in God’s ability and desire to intervene on behalf of the downtrodden: “O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted; you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed, so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more.” Lament leads us to hope.
Amazingly, we can see this process in the wider structure of the book of Psalms as a whole. Psalms as literary works were written by the Israelites throughout their history, and the most important and widely-known were compiled together into the book of psalms which we now find in our Old Testament. The book is structured in a way so that laments are largely found in the first section, scattered amongst praise poems; but as you journey through the book, songs of praise outweigh those of lament. The shift in the book’s overall structure - from lament to praise – is supposed to teach us something about the nature of prayer: that it is marked by a tension. In our lives we see glimpses of and hope in the kingdom to come and yet experience suffering and see evil, injustice and pain. And we pray with both realities in hand. The book as a whole, therefore, reminds us not to ignore present suffering or dismiss our questions about injustice. At the same time as lamenting, we must remember that our hope as Christians is forward-looking and rooted in the promise of a coming kingdom founded upon justice. We must live in the reality of the suffering and brokenness that now exist – yet holding tightly to the future hope we have, living in that tension.
The existence of lament in the Psalms and throughout the Bible shows us that it is a crucial part of the people of God’s journey of faith in a sinful, unjust and hurting world. Lament is given as a tool, a spiritual discipline even, to followers of Jesus who are committed to a whole-life pursuit of justice. It helps us to lay down burdens and re-centre on God. We must linger in the process of pain for as long as we need and allow it to launch us into deeper levels of trust, hope and expectancy for the coming of God’s kingdom. It is time the Church re-claimed the Biblical language that embraces the confusion, processes pain and protests the brokenness of this world. It is time to remember the lost art of lament.
Further resources and sources of reference:
JustLove National: JustLove have written blog posts specifically about reflecting on how we can respond to the Coronavirus, thinking about the need for both grief and hope in this time - https://justloveuk.com/blog
The Bible Project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9phNEaPrv8
Examples of artistic lament:
My good friends have created this video, using dance and film as a prayer of lament and supplication to God during the Coronavirus: https://www.facebook.com/ywam.sanjose/videos/3132624153438930/
Geraldine Latty, Lord You Hear the Cry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wIGduU0ces
Shane and Shane, Psalm 13: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvPBFdZVasI
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