Reflection 5: The Power of Lament (Psalm 22)

An excerpt from Reflection 5...followed by questions for reflection...

"Our Jewish fathers and mothers in the faith would have been puzzled by this reticence to express negative emotions – especially to God. God was their intimate covenant partner, and God received the full brunt of Israel’s anguish, sense of abandonment, anger, frustration. This way of praying is characteristic of the Hebrew Bible and the prayer of the Jewish people. There was no sense that expressing such emotions – shaking one’s fist at God, so to speak, lamenting the intrusions by enemies, feeling God’s absence, railing against the injustice of life – was a sign of lack of faith. The contrary, in fact, was true.  Lament is found in various books of the Old Testament (the Hebrew Bible) including the Book of Exodus, Judges, Samuel, the Prophets and the Book of Job, and, of course, the Book of Psalms. Psalms that express these “negative” emotions are called “psalms of lament,” and they are the majority of the songs in the Book of Psalms.

It is also frequently observed that lament is rarely a part of Christian worship today. Rather, what is often described as the prosperity gospel, or alternatively, “ultra-bright forms of worship,” seem to occupy centre stage. Where, then, do we go in the face of personal grief and devastating losses? Where do we go to cry out in indignation about the horrors of war … the senselessness of children being shot at school, the latest suicide of a young person, the missing and murdered aboriginal women, the young mother with a new baby and a diagnosis of stage 4 cancer, the death of a child – and the many smaller horrors that invade our lives? When we question everything? Singing “God is so good” when God seems to do nothing about these realities only multiplies the horror.

Nor is the paschal mystery – the self-giving of God out of love for the world seen most clearly in the living, dying and death of Jesus, and God’s raising him up to new life, and the sending of Spirit of Jesus to inhabit the whole universe as its very life principle – which we often abbreviate to “the death and resurrection of Jesus,” a facile response to the situations that give rise to lament. There is no resurrection without death. This is not a passing to a new kind of life without that final, physical cessation of life that is death. Death is harsh. It hurts. Deeply."

For reflection

Do I feel free to express to God my anger, pain, anguish, frustration? If not, what do I do with those emotions in relationship to my spiritual life? 

How does knowing the structure of a lament psalm help you interpret Psalm 22 for Passion Sunday?

Using the structure of a lament psalm, write your own lament psalm based in what’s going on in your own life, or in the life of the world. To help you, consult Irene Nowell’s book on the psalms, Pleading,Cursing, Praising.