Excerpt from the sermon “The Land of Lament”
To cry is inherently human; to lament is inherently Christian.
Crying acknowledges the reality of pain, the difficulty of loss, and the emotional trauma of something bad happening. Crying is the outward physical expression of painful emotions. It is an appropriate and natural response to pain, tragedy, loss, hurt, and disappointment. Crying is a human reaction to suffering of any kind.
Lament is everything that I just described (it too involves crying), but with a deeper meaning and a different focus. Biblical lament adds something both underneath and above crying. Why is there any crying in the world? Where does crying come from? The Bible answers those questions by telling us that the cause of death, pain, and tragedy is the presence of sin in the world. Underneath our tears—the reason we are crying—is the spiritual reality of a created order that is broken and flawed.
Biblical lament expresses sorrow while acknowledging the bigger and ultimate problem of sin in the world. Lament grapples with a deep problem, which is why Jesus was called “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). He, more than anyone who walked on earth, understood the depth of the problem embedded in our humanity.
Above and beyond our crying, Christian lament adds something more to tears. It provides hope. You might think it ironic at first, but biblical lament requires faith and is essentially a prayer. Christian lament knows the cause of sorrow, understands the solution, and longs for the promised deliverance. Lament wrestles with the tension that God is good, but bad things still happen. Lament struggles with the promise that one day there will be no more pain, tears, and death (Rev. 21:4), but that day has not yet come.
Lament acknowledges the ultimate cause of suffering and longs for the promised resolution. Christians can truly lament because they understand the full story of redemption. Crying expresses sorrow over pain while biblical lament goes further; it interprets the cause and the trajectory of pain. That is why I believe that to cry is human but to lament is Christian.
We can learn three important lessons by looking at what the Bible says about lament.
1. Sin has affected everything.
The reason lament is inherently Christian, and why Christianity is able to interpret the brokenness in the world, is because of the Bible’s understanding of the great problem of sin.
The Bible tells us that God is holy, that mankind’s greatest problem is that we have all fallen short of God’s glory (Rom. 3:23), and that all of creation groans under this brokenness (Rom. 8:22). A Christian understands that underneath every problem in life lies the reality of sin.
But the Bible also tells us that sin and brokenness are not the end of the story. Through the death of Jesus, God made it possible for sin to be forgiven. Those who receive Christ understand both the problem of sin and the remedy offered through Jesus. So, while a Christian understands the problem of sin and laments its effects, he or she longs for the day when sin will no longer ravage the world.
Christians believe that grace is amazing. We have tasted it. But we also know that sin ruins everything, and we mourn its presence in the world. Thus, we lament.
2. Our sin and our suffering are not the only problems.
Sin affects people and relationships, but it also affects families, cities, and nations. Our rebellion against God surfaces on a personal level, but it also emerges in greater and more universal ways as well. Your personal pain is not the only pain. We tend to over-individualize suffering.The book of Lamentations helps show us the importance of lamenting on a larger scale.
3. Lament turns the heart toward worship and awakens slumbering hearts.
Lament is the bridge between your pain and praise. Lament is how a painful heart is tuned to sing God’s song. Lament is how we reorient our hearts away from anger, frustration, and despair. Lament starts us on a faith-filled path of worship.
Lament does this at a personal level, but it also does it on a corporate level. When the bottom drops out of your family, community, city, or nation, where do you go? Often Christians react with anger, fear, apathy, or despair. Even followers of Jesus can look at the collapse around us and begin to act as if we are overly beholden to our culture and do not know the long arc of human history.
So, rather than being angry, fearful, apathetic, or in despair, we should lament. We should do what Jeremiah did at the fall of Jerusalem, as seen in the book of Lamentations. We should use lament to draw us out of a limited perspective on the effects of a broken world and allow it to remind us of the bigger plan of God.
What’s more, we should listen to the laments in the Bible and allow them to awaken our hearts. We should listen to Lamentations in order to be reminded that God is holy and our culture is not. And there comes a time when God says, “Enough.” We should use lament to awaken our hearts to the brokenness that is around us that we can easily forget, suppress, or ignore.
Lament reminds us that there is something wrong with the world, and it points us to the one who can ultimately make everything right. Laments turns our hearts God-ward as we are reminded in a minor key that individually, corporately, and nationally we need his mercy. Lament reminds us that the problem in the world is sin, and God is the only one who can truly bring a solution.
To cry is human; to lament is Christian.
To learn more about lament, check out the sermon series Lamentations: Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy.
