Lament...?!?

You don’t need to read much of the Bible’s Psalms to appreciate the raw emotions portrayed by its song-writers.  There’s the whole gamut of emotions – from ecstatic joy, wonder and praise right through to profound sadness, grief and despair.

For the former you only have to read the final Psalm which has a whole orchestra, complete with bells and whistles, to express the glorious praises of our God.  The final words from the Psalms are pertinent: “Let everything that breathes praise the Lord.  Hallelujah.”

For the latter, just begin with Psalm 3.  King David, persecuted by his own son, Absalom, laments: “Lord, how my foes increase!  There are many who attack me.”  Or what about the terrible sadness of Psalm 22?  It begins with words Jesus took on His lips as He suffered hellish agony on the cross, ”My God, my God, why have you abandoned me.”

Speaking to one of my daughters recently, we agreed that these days we don’t do laments very well.  Contemporary Christian music is quick to pick up on the exuberant joy of the Bible’s songs of praise... it’s not so quick to ask the difficult questions that the psalmists ask, both of God and of ourselves.  An example..?  We borrowed a theme from Psalm 42 for that delightful song, “As the deer pants for the water so my soul longs after you.”  But that song ignores the twice repeated “question: “Why, my soul, are you so dejected?  Why are you in such turmoil?”

My daughter floated the idea that perhaps modern Christianity is too preoccupied with the health, wealth and prosperity slant on Christianity to honestly face the tough questions when the Lord God seems to have abandoned us.  And wouldn’t those questions put a damper on things?  So we prefer not to talk about sin and human brokenness and prefer instead to limit ourselves to the joy and blessings of salvation.  For that reason in many Christian churches prayers of confession are no longer heard.  But in the process we forget that salvation makes little sense if we don’t know what it is that Jesus saves us from.

My discussion with my daughter had a context.  She suffers from neurological disorders that have brought much discomfort, pain and hardship over the years.  She currently attends a study group on sickness and suffering with other members of her church, addressing the concept of Biblical lament.  They raised another factor that tends to silence lament.  It is not only that we’ve become enamoured with a false ‘prosperity gospel’ and that we don’t want negativity to spoil our happiness.  There’s also the problem of how we ourselves present to our fellow saints.

Think about it.  Would you dare tell King David in Psalm 3 to stop feeling sorry for himself?  Or there’s that lament of Psalm 44: “You have made us like sheep for the slaughter and have scattered us among the nations.”  Would you tell the authors, the Sons of Korah, that their faith in God is lacking because of their complaint?  Or that there must be some unconfessed sin in their life for them to be troubled like this?  I doubt it.  And yet...!  The experience of some in this group is that others call their faith into question, because otherwise why has God not healed them yet – it must be their faith that is lacking.

Please... I’m not suggesting that because lament is common in the Old Testament (there’s even a book entitled: Lamentations) that therefore it’s appropriate for us to include times of lamentation in our worship services.  Not at all..!  We have answers to our deepest problems that God’s Old Testament people could only see very dimly.  We live after Calvary and the empty tomb and that gives us insights that neither David nor the Sons of Korah were privileged to have.

Nevertheless, even today God’s saved people live in a world where the sounds of our groaning creation are very audible.  Lament happens when we seriously grapple with God’s promises in the context of wondering why Jesus has not yet come to make all things new.  It’s a little like the Patriarch Jacob wrestling with God until the Lord blesses him.  And isn’t that repeatedly how lament appears in the Psalms?  The struggle is there... but so is the assurance of victory.  Psalm 42 asks the tough question: “Why, my soul, are you so dejected?” but it also answers its own question, “Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him, my salvation and my God!”

John Westendorp
2MaxFM 26/10/2025