Often, it seems that sadness, grief, and lament are hurried, suppressed, or discouraged in Christian community. A noteworthy omission considering the prophets, Psalms, and Lamentations give significant space for emotional pain and sorrow surrounding difficult circumstances.
As Christians, how should we engage with sadness? Is it right for Christians to be sad? How should we reconcile verses like Phillipans 4:4 or 1st Thessalonians 5:18 that tell us to rejoice always and give thanks in any circumstances?
My answer to the above questions would be a resounding, yes! Not only are Christians allowed to be sad in moments of despair, but should be sad when the circumstances are appropriate as exemplified in scripture.
All Creation Groans
Even creation itself groans (Romans: 8:22) in communal recognition that something is terribly wrong with the way things are.
There is no ignoring this reality.
To ignore this reality would be psychologically and emotionally self-inflicting, leading to isolation, anger, and resentment. So either we suppress our pain or find appropriate spaces to process this pain.
Because everyone has suffered, it is in the very fabricate of existence.
The ground was cursed because of Adam’s folly.
Childrearing was cursed because of Eve’s folly.
Pain is inescapable.
Suffering, pervasive.
Death, inevitable.
And to what end? How are we supposed to reconcile the fact that rape, murder, sexual abuse, and chronic disease still exist despite the biblical proclamations of a loving and all powerful God? After the death of his wife, C.S. Lewis boldly speaks to this reality when he says:
Don’t come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect you don’t understand.
A Grief Observed | C.S. Lewis
Seemingly, death and suffering eradicate any notion that an all powerful and all loving creator presides over all creation. Suffering forces us to take inventory of our biblically based beliefs about an all-loving God and reconcile them with the horrors we either experience or witness. Again, C.S. Lewis so accurately describes this tension:
You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you.
A Grief Observed | C.S. Lewis
Unfortunately, this is too difficult for many and suffering is used as evidence to suggest God does not exist while others exist in a sugar coated reality by dismissing the impact of suffering entirely. Herein lies the irony of lament, for it does neither.
Lament Authenticates Our Hope
While some use suffering to suggest God cannot exist, lament uses suffering to proclaim God must exist. For lament uses suffering as further evidence for what is to come in Christ!
The greatest grievance is not how a good God could allow bad things; the greatest grievance is how competing secular worldviews could possibly be sufficient to provide comfort amidst suffering. Without a future hope, our lament loses its potency. In this way, lament authenticates our future hope in Christ while this future hope gives purpose to our lament. It is mutually binding.
It allows us to grieve the way things are and hope for the way things should be. It focuses our attention on a hope that originates outside ourselves, a liberty that fixates our attention on a loving father rather than suffering itself.
Not to suggest that lament bypasses appropriate acknowledgment of pain, quite the contrary! Lament is both an active engagement with pain, and a therapeutically healing process that verbally expresses emotional pain rather than dissociating from it. For without a Christocentric (theological centering on Christ) hope, suffering would be in vain.
It is participatory, intimately binding us to others in common recognition that death and darkness so often seem to be winning.
Biblical Structure of Lament
Lament is process oriented, there is no shortcut to remedy pain. Biblically, lament follows a similar pattern:
Turning to God (Psalm 13:1).
Expressing our grievance (Psalm 22:1).
Submission and praise to God (Psalm 22:9).
David exemplifies this format by his frequent seemingly accusatory pleadings with God followed by songs of praise and adoration. Even Jesus himself models this format when he grieves his own suffering in Gethsemane and on the cross (Psalm 22:1, Luke 23:46,) followed by humble submission to the father (Luke 22:42).
Furthermore, Jesus was both receptive and expressive in his own engagement with lament. Following Job’s agonizing, Jesus received him as one who spoke truth about God (Job 42:7) in his lament. And yet wept (John 11:35) when his friend Lazarus died despite knowing he would raise him moments later.
Clearly, both scripture and the life of Jesus are liberally descriptive in giving space for Christians to be sad.
Every Easter, I try to watch the Passion of the Christ on good Friday. I never look forward to it and truthfully, I rarely follow through. Death is horrible, to see Jesus subjected to what most historians consider to be a mildly depicted version of Roman crucifixion is agonizing. I so often wish we could just skip to Sunday, but Sunday is significant because Friday and Saturday exist. Through lament, Sunday becomes a beacon of hope. Death is Friday, Lament is Saturday, hope is Sunday.
Why This Matters In Ministry
Below are 3 reasons why clergy, church staff, elders, etc. might want to incorporate lament more often in whatever way seems appropriate for their ministry.
It honors the experience of the sufferer
When we as believers, called to live in communion with other believers, give appropriate space and acknowledgement to the pain and suffering of another, it honors whatever horror they might be experiencing. Imagine if Jesus, after witnessing his friends weep over the death of their dear friend and brother Lazerus, was unaffected by such tragedy? How unempathetic he would be. Yet, he does the opposite. Jesus was “deeply moved in spirit and troubled” (John 11:33) by their affliction and honored them by his participation
It binds us to other believers
I can hardly think of a more intimately binding experience than sitting with a dear friend following a terminal diagnosis in mutual acknowledgement and reverence that death is horrible. Relationally, suffering is transcendent. Nothing else matters in moments of deep pain and sadness. Racial differences, socioeconomic differences, cultural differences, or personal differences crumble in the face of suffering
Gives meaning to our suffering
Holocaust survivor Victor Frankl, spent time in 4 different concentration camps including Auschwitz during his time as a POW. Pertaining to the meaning of suffering, he notes:
Once the meaning of suffering had been revealed to us, we refused to minimize or alleviate the camp’s tortures by ignoring them or harboring false illusions and entertaining artificial optimism
Man’s Search For Meaning | Victor Frankl
Lament leads us out of artificial optimism, and into authentic and honest appraisal of life’s difficulties. For the more we lament when suffering, the more we yearn and ache for Christ and his kingdom. This is why we suffer.