1.
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from
God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The
message from God’s Word today is taken from Lamentations 3:22-33 (READ TEXT),
it’s entitled, “Learning to Lament,” dear brothers and sisters in
Christ.
2.
A pastor was giving counsel to a
lady who experienced periodic bouts of depression. He would visit her in her home, read God’s
Word to her and apply it to her life, and pray with her. She would often say
that she felt better, and she meant it. But, sooner or later the dark cloud
would envelop her again. On one such day she asked the pastor to visit her yet
another time. When he did, he surprised her a bit. He offered her his apologies.
“I’ve been treating you as though you are ill somehow,” he said, “but
perhaps that is not the trouble. Could it be that you are in grief? Are you
sorrowing over the loss of something, even something you never had?” As
they went on talking, it seemed that it was grief that she had been feeling.
When she recognized this fact, she was ready to begin moving on. William H. Willimon, Pastor: The Theology and Practice of
Ordained Ministry (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2002), 92–93.
3.
There is a lesson for us to derive
from this story, and there is one not to derive. The good lesson has to do with
the value of suffering, grief, and lament. We live in what has been well-called
a “therapeutic society.” It tends to see all human need in terms of
illness, and it tries to counter illness as quickly as possible. The therapeutic
society can’t imagine anything good or constructive about suffering. Its
impulse is to get in there and fix things, certainly to alleviate pain as much
as possible. That can be a mistake, though. The good lesson to learn from the
story of the pastor and the woman is that her pain was serving a purpose. It
had been a mistake for people to simply try to make her feel better. As the
pastor realized, he had been wrong to conclude that he had done his job if he
spoke with her and she did feel better. There was no way around this woman’s
grief. She had to go through it.
4.
God gives us words for the times
when we are grieving, frustrated, confused, angry, and hurting. Some of the
psalms provide great cases in point. Our text is from another such part of the
Bible, the Book of Lamentations. When this book was written by Jeremiah,
Jerusalem had just been invaded, the temple destroyed, and many people taken
off into exile in Babylon. Jeremiah was writing in the wake of considerable
bloodshed and loss of life. The weeping, groaning, wailing, lamenting of
Lamentations come as no surprise. There was no getting around any of it, no
alternative but to go through it.
5.
Biblical lamentation marks a faith
that is neither plastic nor Pollyanna-like. No, it is a faith
that faces the real world. The Church in our culture often runs the risk of
turning Christianity into a superficial religion of smiles. It positions itself
to serve people who are well, not the sick; those who are whole, not the
broken. People eventually get fed up with approaches that put bandages on
cancer, though. Have you ever heard someone say he wants honest Christianity? Reed Lessing, “Living with the Laments,” Concordia Journal
31 (July 2005): 218–19. One of the things such a person very likely wants is biblical
lament. He may well have grown tired of trying to go around things he needs
to go through. Our text says, “It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in
his youth” (Lamentations 3:27).
6.
This brings us to a lesson we
shouldn’t derive from the story of the pastor and the depressed woman. Biblical-type
laments don’t simply amount to getting something off your chest. They don’t
make for ways we can advertise problems to sympathetic hearers so our misery
can love their company. Biblical lamenting can be corporate as well as
individual, but in either case the lament isn’t directed to other people. It’s
directed to God, the Lord who is very much alive and active in this world. In
the verses prior to our text, Lamentations 3 says that God had mutilated the
body and broken the spirit. He left no way of escape. The Lord had treated his
people like prey to be hunted. It seemed that everything they hoped for was
gone. The yoke can be heavy indeed.
7.
When the words of lament have been
spoken or cried, then there is . . . silence. Never underestimate the
importance of this silence. Through the psalmist the Lord says, “Be still,
and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). Our text puts it this way: “Let
him sit alone in silence when it is laid on him; let him put his mouth in the
dust” (Lamentations 3:28– 29a). You see, another lesson we should not
derive is the idea that our courage in bearing up under suffering forms a
reason for God to rescue us from it. Rather, our silence acknowledges that we
stand defenseless before him, the One against whom we have sinned. He stops
every mouth and holds all the world accountable (Romans 3:19). We don’t
presume upon his grace. As the text says, “There may yet be hope”
(Lamentations 3:29b).
8.
There is hope. This hope for sinners
stands out as better than any relief to our troubles that we could possibly
imagine. “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never
come to an end” (Lamentations 3:22). Despite the fact that we’ve not
deserved any of it, the Lord has an abundant supply of steadfast love and
mercies that are new every morning. He remains loyal and faithful to his Word
and his people, and so he acts for our good and our salvation. The Lord, no
less, is our portion (Lamentations 3:24). We can dare to hope in this loving
and merciful Lord precisely because his compassion does come. Quietly we can
wait for his salvation, confident that he won’t disappoint us. Yes, we stand
defenseless before him, but he himself comes to our defense in Christ.
9.
Maybe we’re prone to think that our
own yokes of suffering and lamentation are heavier than any other. But, no one
has ever uttered more profound laments than Jesus. There was no reason for him
to be afflicted, tortured, stricken, smitten, and afflicted by God. That is,
there was no reason but Christ’s own love for us and his steadfastly keeping to
the plan of salvation. He saw it all the way through. He remained our Substitute in life and
lament, in dirge and death. He cried out, “My God, my God, why have you
forsaken me?” (Psalm 22:1; Matthew 27:46). When he spoke those words, this
wasn’t the lament of a sinner who had it coming. This was God forsaking God,
the eternal Father forsaking the eternal Son he had loved from all eternity.
Impossible as this act is for us ever completely to understand, nonetheless it
is what God has done for us in his strong, loyal, steadfast love. Jesus was the
suffering Messiah of Psalm 22, Isaiah 53, and other passages. He acted as our
Substitute, our Sacrifice, the Ransom paid for our release. For his part, God
the Father “has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted”
(Psalm 22:24). He heard Christ’s call and raised him from the dead. He made him
Victor over sin, the devil, death—and anything else that could ever cause us to
lament.
10.
As with Jesus, so also with those
who are baptized into Christ—so, that is, for you and me! When God wants to
make alive, he does it through death. When he wants to make right, he proclaims
guilt first and crushes. When he wants to take to heaven, he makes a path
leading through hell. Biblical-type lament believes, because of Christ, that
God “will not cast off forever” (Lamentations 3:31), that “he does
not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men” (Lamentations 3:33).
The work he is really interested in doing is blessing and saving people, and
this he does in Christ.
11.
Biblical-style lament knows that
when it comes to our status before God, the important word isn’t therefore
but despite. The world thinks in terms of the therefore: you
please God, therefore you get good things; you displease him, therefore
you get suffering. It’s that simple, open and shut. But this isn’t the way God
operates. Instead, his strong love and tender mercies come to us on a despite
basis. Despite our complete lack of worthiness, the Lord loves. He
redeems.3 Robert Rosin, Concordia
Journal 17 (April 1991): 202–5. Christ
himself forms the Key to this “despite.” Despite our sufferings,
we hope in the One who died and rose for us. He continues to invite you and me,
“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. .
. . For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28, 30).
12.
A newborn child turned out to have
Down Syndrome and a respiratory condition. The respiratory condition was
correctible, but as the doctor consulted with the newborn’s parents, he didn’t
advise correcting it. Let nature take its course, the doctor said, and in a few
days the problem would take care of itself. The parents recoiled in horror at
his suggestion, insisting that he do everything possible for the baby. The
doctor pointed out that in cases like these marital distress often ensues, and
worse things still. He asked why these people would risk such things for
themselves and their other two children. The mother replied that the family
would be fine. She told the doctor, “I could certainly see why it would make
sense for a child like this to be born into a family like ours.” Her other
two kids had not experienced much suffering, she said, but this situation
really formed an opportunity for the whole family. On his way out of the
hospital room, the doctor said to the family’s pastor, “I hope you can talk
some reason into them.” 4 Willimon,
99
13.
The family actually had a great
reason for reacting in this confident and hopeful way. It wells up from the
depths of biblical-type lament. Such lament cries before the Lord, then is
silent and waits upon him. It knows that his steadfast love never ceases and
his mercies are new every morning. So it’s equipped to go through hard
times, not try to tiptoe around them. Despite the yoke of suffering, and
on account of Christ, the eyes of faith see good coming from God. Now the peace of God that passes all
understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life
everlasting. Amen.
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