January 5: Lament

Today is the second day of my attempt to regularly blog here for three reasons: 1. to share helpful truths with readers, 2. to, I hope, grow the readership, and 3. to jump start my own writing productivity, which has suffered immensely over the last few months (a future post will explain). The first, however, is the most important. The biggest sin writing can commit is boredom, and by that I do not meant “non-entertaining” alone. I mean non-applicable or relevant to the reader.

As the new year has started, I have fished around for what reading material to use for my spiritual formation and daily worship. I have no lack of books to choose from, so that is not the concern. Obviously, the first place is the Bible. I made a commitment with the church I attend to read the New Testament in 2024, which promise I completed with a marathon reading of Revelation on December 30 and 31 (another blog post; a blog post on the word “my” is coming, too). However, I thought I would look into some of the devotional literature written over the past 1900 years.

I started with a more recent book than the Roman Empire’s time. It is Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy by Mark Vroegop, a book I started and didn’t really finish. In this volume, Pastor Vroegop, good Dutch name and I have Dutch roots, writes of his and his family’s journey involving lament, specifically over grief of losing a child right before her expected due date. That is a heartbreaking experience and one where he and his wife traveled through grief.

Lament psalms, songs, and passages do constitute a significant part of the Old Testament, and less so, it seems, the New. I will come back to that. Pastor Vroegop’s book has made me contemplate this subject and my own shallowness, which might be mirrored in our society’s and church’s lack of depth across the board.

What is LAMENT? My definition, if we need one, is the outpouring of our feelings in times of grief. However, I do not think grief over losing someone explains the extent of it, specifically in the prophets. Jeremiah lamented over the sin of his people, their exile (let’s not think this was an easy camel ride to Babylon, by the way), and their shaming that was going to last seventy years. Lament is for other people, not just one’s own loss. I am not sure it is really mostly about grief over a specific loss, although obviously it often is. It is about awareness and response to punishment—one’s own and others; despair, hoping for hope, teetering on the edge of hopelessness; and loss of the present and future, and maybe a sense of the past.

The laments of the psalms involve David’s persecution by Saul and other enemies; Israel’s defeat by neighboring cultures; and deaths of many and of one. When I think of lament, I think of Psalm 44.

We have heard with our ears, God;
    our fathers have told us what work you did in their days,
    in the days of old.
2 You drove out the nations with your hand,
    but you planted them.
You afflicted the peoples,
    but you spread them abroad.
3 For they didn’t get the land in possession by their own sword,
    neither did their own arm save them;
but your right hand, your arm, and the light of your face,
    because you were favorable to them.
4 God, you are my King.
    Command victories for Jacob!
5 Through you, we will push down our adversaries.
    Through your name, we will tread down those who rise up against us.
6 For I will not trust in my bow,
    neither will my sword save me.
7 But you have saved us from our adversaries,
    and have shamed those who hate us.
8 In God we have made our boast all day long.
    We will give thanks to your name forever. Selah.

9 But now you rejected us, and brought us to dishonor,
    and don’t go out with our armies.
10 You make us turn back from the adversary.
    Those who hate us take plunder for themselves.
11 You have made us like sheep for food,
    and have scattered us among the nations.
12 You sell your people for nothing,
    and have gained nothing from their sale.
13 You make us a reproach to our neighbors,
    a scoffing and a derision to those who are around us.
14 You make us a byword among the nations,
    a shaking of the head among the peoples.
15 All day long my dishonor is before me,
    and shame covers my face,
16     at the taunt of one who reproaches and verbally abuses,
    because of the enemy and the avenger.
17 All this has come on us,
    yet we haven’t forgotten you.
    We haven’t been false to your covenant.
18 Our heart has not turned back,
    neither have our steps strayed from your path,
19     though you have crushed us in the haunt of jackals,
    and covered us with the shadow of death.
20 If we have forgotten the name of our God,
    or spread out our hands to a strange god,
21     won’t God search this out?
    For he knows the secrets of the heart.
22 Yes, for your sake we are killed all day long.
    We are regarded as sheep for the slaughter.
23 Wake up!
    Why do you sleep, Lord?[a]
Arise!
    Don’t reject us forever.
24 Why do you hide your face,
    and forget our affliction and our oppression?
25 For our soul is bowed down to the dust.
    Our body clings to the earth.
26 Rise up to help us.
    Redeem us for your loving kindness’ sake.

I have always felt this lament was particularly fierce and accusing of God. Why do you sleep, O LORD? This is honest lament, so honest it makes us uncomfortable, I think; it puts us on edge and think, “I could not talk to God that way.” Perhaps lament does.

I will continue to read Pastor Vroegop’s book, but I think it is more about grief than a full look at lament, which I will also investigate.