Practicing Lament

How to talk to God when things aren't fine

“I’m fine, thanks.”

If you live in the UK, you probably know this is the correct answer when someone at church asks you how you are. “I’m fine.” Even when things are definitely not fine.

Of course, this isn’t always a bad response. But there’s a problem if we think it’s the only answer we’re allowed to give as Christians. So, if things aren’t fine, we feel we need to pretend they are. And we can take that same pretence into the presence of God. “Yes, Lord, everything’s fine.”

But then we read the psalms. And we discover a very different way of speaking to God. We read very honest prayers that bring people’s pain and distress to God, with a sense of desperation and anguish. This is the language of lament. And, Rebekah Eklund argues, this is language Christians need to practice using more. In fact, “lament is woven deeply into the fabric of the New Testament, and is an essential part of the Christian life” (xiii).

A few years ago, I read Rebekah Eklund’s 2015 book Jesus Wept ahead of a sermon series through the seven sayings of Jesus on the cross.¹ I’m thankful that she’s now written a more general book for a wider readership, Practicing Lament (Cascade Books, 2021). And if you keep reading, you’ll see a few of the reflections this book has prompted me to have on the place of lament in the Christian life.

Jesus wept

The truth that has most shaped my understanding of lament in recent years is the wonderful reality that “Jesus wept”. In Jesus, we see God entering our world of darkness and pain, suffering with us and for us. In Jesus, we see our own prayers of lament being affirmed and understood by heaven. Jesus himself cried out in lament, and now hears us as we follow his example.

The example of Jesus is heard most clearly in the final hours before his death, as he draws on the language of lament psalms to express his sorrow and distress. In the garden of Gethsemane, we hear echoes of Psalm 42 as his soul is cast down, overwhelmed with sorrow.² At Golgotha, Psalm 22 provides “the constant background music to Jesus’ final hours” (29). And his seven sayings on the cross contain all the elements of biblical lament: “The invoking of a relationship, a cry of grief and despair, a sense of divine abandonment, an urgent plea for help, a declaration of trust and praise in the midst of the deepest suffering” (32).

Jesus wept. But, gloriously, he does more than just weep in solidarity. He also gives us hope. In the Gospels, “Jesus appears on both sides of the lament—he laments, and he hears. He weeps, and he dries the tears” (33-34). In his earthly ministry, people cried to him, “Have mercy on me!” And he had mercy on them. At the tomb of Lazarus, Jesus joined the mourning, and then he brought the mourning to an end. And now, this Jesus is in heaven as our great high priest, listening to our prayers of lament with understanding, with compassion, and with a determination to act in answer to our cries.

Earth groans

At this point, we might wonder if there is still room for lament after the resurrection. As Rebekah Eklund puts it, “If God has won, is there anything left to complain about?” (19). We may still lament as penitence for our own sin, of course. But aren’t we showing a lack of faith if we lament in protest at our circumstances or the world around us?³

Unsurprisingly, Rebekah Eklund writes that lament is actually a vital part of post-resurrection spirituality. Lament recognises that Jesus has indeed risen victorious, but he hasn’t yet returned in glory. For the time being, we still wait. We still suffer. We still mourn. Lament is an important form of prayer for these “in-between times”, for the “wide and often painful gap between the dawn and the sunrise” (51).

The New Testament’s emphasis on patient endurance in suffering doesn’t contradict this. Christian endurance isn’t about pretending everything’s fine, hiding our sorrow, calmly accepting our circumstances, or rushing to praise God when things go wrong. In fact, lament is one part of how we patiently endure. For Paul in Romans 8:22-23, endurance involves “groaning” — a word which brings to mind the cries of the Israelites in Egyptian slavery (Exodus 2:24), the psalms of lament (e.g. Psalm 6:7) and the book of Lamentations (especially chapter 1).

Lament is therefore not sinful or a sign of deficient faith, but a valuable gift that can help us endure. To explain this further, the author draws on the insights of medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas on emotions (“passions”).⁴ Aquinas argues that we are not morally responsible for emotions that arise spontaneously. But we are responsible for how we “choose to nurture or sustain or feed those emotions” (39). Lament is one way we can can shape our doubts and fears in a positive direction. “Lament inclines toward hope. It leans toward the light while still in the darkness. It takes doubts and fears over God’s silence and shapes them into prayer” (40). We groan. But we can learn to groan with hope.

God listens

As we shape our doubts and fears into prayer, we remember the wonderful news that God is not just a good speaker. He’s also a very good listener. Rebekah Eklund points to the example of Job, where “God listens without interrupting to his servant Job hurling complaints at God for thirty-five whole chapters” (6). In my depression, I’ve found comfort in reading the lament psalms, and seeing how — even in the darkness of Psalm 88 — God never interrupts the psalmist to tell them to shut up and stop complaining. In fact, these psalms are so precious that he has recorded them for generations to come.

Our own laments today are spoken with the conviction (or at least the hope) that God still listens. And he continues to listen whatever despair, confusion, doubts, struggles, fears, regrets or sorrows we bring to him. And if our laments are addressed to a God who listens, they don’t reveal a lack of faith. In fact, they show the opposite: “a deep and abiding trust, however faint, however shaken, however wounded, in a God who hears the cries of God’s children” (38).

Others weep

Probably the most helpful part of Practicing Lament was the author’s reflections on the need for lament in our corporate life as church, not just our individual lives as disciples. As a community of God’s people, we’re called to rejoice together and to weep together, to celebrate victories together and to mourn losses together. As a pastor, I know I need to reflect more on what this means for our gatherings as church.

The value of lament in public worship is summarised well in a quote from Clarissa Moll: “Lament offers space for those grieving to bring their sorrows before the God who hears our cries and binds up our wounds. Lament in corporate worship also reminds the larger body that there are those among us we must carry gently, who need our comfort and care. We remind the bereaved they are not forgotten; their tears matter to God and to us.”⁵

Lament also enables us to acknowledge our sin together, and mourn the ways our actions have contributed to the pain and sorrow of the world. Rebekah Eklund gives the example of what this might look like as a response to the evil of domestic abuse: “As penitence, lament is a prayer of grief and repentance for the times that churches or communities have been silent or complicit in the abuse of women and children. It could be a prayer of grief and repentance for anyone who once lifted a hand in violence against another person. As protest, lament calls on God’s justice to protect the vulnerable and hold abusers to account for their actions” (91).

And, finally, lament is one way we show solidarity with others in a world of sorrow. It’s one part of our response to situations of local, national or global distress. And as we lament, we show the credibility of our faith in a broken world — we know that the world is dark, but God has shone his light into this world, and the darkness will one day disappear forever.

If any of these reflections has piqued your interest, I’d recommend getting hold of Rebekah Eklund’s book and thinking through the place of lament in your life, and your church’s life. In the meantime, I’ll finish with her own closing words:

“I yearn for the Day when we no longer need lament. Until then, we weep with those who weep. Until then, we cry out in longing for God to usher in a new age of justice and peace. Someday.”

Amen!

Some links

In the UK, you can get Rebekah Eklund’s book from Eden, or digitally from Logos.

If you want to dig deeper into the laments of Jesus, her book Jesus Wept is available from the publisher or from Logos.

For lament inspiration, Douglas McKelvey’s Every Moment Holy volumes contain a number of prayers of lament. You can invest in both volumes at 10ofThose.

Some other helpful recent-ish books on lament include:

• David W. Smith’s Stumbling Toward Zion (Langham, 2020) — available here

• Mark Vroegop’s Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy (Crossway, 2019) — available here

• Federico Villanueva’s It’s OK to Be Not OK (Langham, 2017) — available here

1. Jesus Wept: The Significance of Jesus’ Laments in the New Testament was published in 2015 by T&T Clark in the Library of New Testament Studies (LNTS 515).

2. In Matthew 26:38, Jesus cries out “περίλυπός ἐστιν ἡ ψυχή μου”. This lament language echoes the LXX of Psalm 42:5, which reads “ἵνα τί περίλυπος εἶ, ψυχή”.

3. Rebekah Eklund identifies “penitence” and “protest” as the two stands of biblical lament, which overlap rather than being entirely separate. She notes that many Christian traditions have emphasised the former at the expense of the latter.

4. You can read more about this in Matthew LaPine’s book The Logic of the Body: Retrieving Theological Psychology (Lexham Press, 2020), although I would highly recommend getting some motivational chocolate (minimum 1.8kg) to accompany the reading process.

5. Clarissa Moll, “Letting Grief Come to Church,” Christianity Today (21 May 2020). Online: https://www.christianitytoday.com/pastors/2020/may-web-exclusives/letting-grief-come-to-church.html