This is Lent: Our Lament
Sue Pyke | February 25th, 2024
Who are we to You, asks a mother grieving the death of her son in the film, The Tree of Life. She echoes Job and the psalmists in the Bible questioning God in the face of suffering. Answer me, they say.
The questioners bear witness to pain, injustice, despair. Why, Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?
They bear witness to my neighbor whose daughter committed suicide 17 years ago. She talks about her daughter in almost every conversation we have. Answer me.
They bear witness to a couple who is suddenly, bewilderingly old. People are carrying the things that no longer belong to them out of the last house they will live in, packing boxes, labeling the remaining contents of a life. Answer me.
How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?
The questioners bear witness to a three-year-old boy who has been in foster care since before his first birthday. His dad moved out of state, and his mom makes and breaks promises to get clean. Answer me.
They bear witness to a young woman who believed her boyfriend loved her. Then her body became his property to sell, and she lost herself and her freedom. Answer me.
The questioners sit in sorrow and solidarity with the sufferers. They ache with the broken-hearted and grieve with the mourners. They cry out for healing with the wounded.
But they don’t leave it there.
The questioners also bear witness to hope. They bear witness to the God of creation and compassion. When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers...what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?
God knows us and provides for us. We find out with the questioners that asking who we are to God can lead us to deeper faith in who he is to us. Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
Response
Lent is a time to lament our own brokenness and the brokenness in the world around us.
The psalms referenced above can provide a guide to faith-filled lament that begins in sorrow and ends in praise. Reflect on lament with these Psalms:
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1 Why, O LORD, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?
2 In arrogance the wicked hotly pursue the poor; let them be caught in the schemes that they have devised.
3 For the wicked boasts of the desires of his soul, and the one greedy for gain curses and renounces the LORD.
4 In the pride of his face the wicked does not seek him; all his thoughts are, "There is no God."
5 His ways prosper at all times; your judgments are on high, out of his sight; as for all his foes, he puffs at them.
6 He says in his heart, "I shall not be moved; throughout all generations I shall not meet adversity."
7 His mouth is filled with cursing and deceit and oppression; under his tongue are mischief and iniquity.
8 He sits in ambush in the villages; in hiding places he murders the innocent. His eyes stealthily watch for the helpless;
9 he lurks in ambush like a lion in his thicket; he lurks that he may seize the poor; he seizes the poor when he draws him into his net.
10 The helpless are crushed, sink down, and fall by his might.
11 He says in his heart, "God has forgotten, he has hidden his face, he will never see it."
12 Arise, O LORD; O God, lift up your hand; forget not the afflicted.
13 Why does the wicked renounce God and say in his heart, "You will not call to account"?
14 But you do see, for you note mischief and vexation, that you may take it into your hands; to you the helpless commits himself; you have been the helper of the fatherless.
15 Break the arm of the wicked and evildoer; call his wickedness to account till you find none.
16 The LORD is king forever and ever; the nations perish from his land.
17 O LORD, you hear the desire of the afflicted; you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear
18 to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed, so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more.
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1 How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?
2 How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?
3 Consider and answer me, O LORD my God; light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death,
4 lest my enemy say, "I have prevailed over him," lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken.
5 But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
6 I will sing to the LORD, because he has dealt bountifully with me.
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1 O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.
2 Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger.
3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
4 what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?
5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.
6 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet,
7 all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field,
8 the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
9 O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
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1 Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.
2 But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped.
3 For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
4 For they have no pangs until death; their bodies are fat and sleek.
5 They are not in trouble as others are; they are not stricken like the rest of mankind.
6 Therefore pride is their necklace; violence covers them as a garment.
7 Their eyes swell out through fatness; their hearts overflow with follies.
8 They scoff and speak with malice; loftily they threaten oppression.
9 They set their mouths against the heavens, and their tongue struts through the earth.
10 Therefore his people turn back to them, and find no fault in them.
11 And they say, "How can God know? Is there knowledge in the Most High?"
12 Behold, these are the wicked; always at ease, they increase in riches.
13 All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence.
14 For all the day long I have been stricken and rebuked every morning.
15 If I had said, "I will speak thus," I would have betrayed the generation of your children.
16 But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task,
17 until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I discerned their end.
18 Truly you set them in slippery places; you make them fall to ruin.
19 How they are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors!
20 Like a dream when one awakes, O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms.
21 When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart,
22 I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you.
23 Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand.
24 You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory.
25 Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
26 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
27 For behold, those who are far from you shall perish; you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.
28 But for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord GOD my refuge, that I may tell of all your works.
