For the next three weeks, we’re going to be exploring how the Book of Psalms can be a way for us to express what is on our heart in any given moment. In fact, I can’t think of a better book in the Bible than the Book of Psalms when it comes to our spirituality and how we can best express our faith. For many people, the Psalms are what have helped people to connect in their faith or reconnect in their spiritual journey.
I became facebook friends with someone I met in person several months ago. I didn’t even know if he was a Christian but this is what he wrote about himself on his facebook profile which really interested me since I knew that we would be focusing on the Psalms for this sermon series:
“Reading the Psalms allowed me to grow into my own haphazard prayers and to inch my way before God with all my conflicting thoughts and feelings. If people in the Bible could shake their fists at God while truly believing in the majesty of God, then maybe I can too.”
For my friend, it was through the Psalms that he was able to reconnect to his faith. And I think this is true for a lot of people.
The Psalms are centuries old prayers grounded in Hebrew spirituality. The Book of Psalms found in the Old Testament is a collection of 150 biblical psalms. The psalms emerge from a people who are in love with life and want to see good or better days. Each generation passes these time tested prayers on to the next. Passed on but never passed over – such is the prayer book called Psalms.
The God of the psalmists is the God of Israel, the God of the covenant. And this God is interested in human troubles, triumphs and trust. This God initiated the relationship with Israel in the first place by calling Abraham and Sarah to leave their old neighborhood and move on to a new place. The same God invited Moses to come right up to the burning bush and learn God’s name. The psalms celebrate this relationship that we can have with God.
Since the Psalms are expressions of the heart, we’re going to look at three categories of Psalms that can help us grow closer to God. We’re going to look at Psalms of lament which is today’s focus. Next Sunday, we’ll look at Psalms of ascent. And two weeks from today, we’ll focus on psalms of enthronement.
So what are Psalms of lament? To lament is to feel, show, or express grief, sorrow, or regret. In the Jewish tradition in which these Psalms were written, the initial grief process is known as “shiva.” This is a time of formal mourning when for at least a full week, you don’t go to work or cook or take care of errands around the house or do anything else. Other people take care of those things for you. And the reason for this is to provide you the time to face the reality of your loss and not to minimize or deny it.
If you have experienced the death of a loved one or have been angry about the unfairness of life, psalms of lament can be an emotionally and spiritually healthy spiritual exercise. As Renee Rust, author of the book, “Making the Psalms Your Prayer” shares, the Psalms of Lament are the bible’s complaint department.
Some people attend seminars to help them reduce stress. The Psalmist’s program for stress reduction is heard through throbbing wails of lament. And these wails of lament are ultimately directed to God and this is what helps us to know that not all is lost, because no matter how deep the loss may be, God cares about our pain.
There are three main areas that Psalms of lament cover. And the first area is loss. Now this can be a death, or another type of loss, like the end of a friendship or another type of significant relationship.
David from the Old Testament is a good example of how this works. For anyone who has felt betrayed by a friend as David did, maybe his words from Psalm 55 hit home – “For it is not an enemy who reproaches me: that I could bear. It is not a rival who taunts me, but you, my other self, my companion and my close friend!”
But here’s the key to these Psalms of lament. As I mentioned before, Psalms of lament remind us that no matter what life may throw our way, that not all is lost. Just a few verses later in that same Psalm, David prays, “But for me, I will call on God who will save me.”
Another main area of Psalms of lament is in the area of our own sins. And not only our own personal sins but the sins and brokenness of a whole community. A lot of the Psalmists express this mourning and sadness because they have sinned against God.
Instead of Psalms of lament, some people might call these penitential psalms. Psalms of lament aren’t meant to leave us feeling empty and terrible about ourselves, they are meant to help us face the reality of our unfaithfulness so that we can receive God’s forgiveness and redeeming love.
Psalms of lament related to our sins are meant to help us to admit what we did, take responsibility for what we can change, and receive God’s healing and forgiving love so that we can move forward in life and learn from our mistakes.
At the Coventry Cathedral in England there is probably the most dramatic symbol of forgiveness. The old cathedral was destroyed in the blitzkrieg of World War II, in the constant bombings of England. Only a shell of the old cathedral was left. The congregation left it, and built the new cathedral right next to it, so that the entrance into the new is through the ruins of the old. You enter new life through forgiving the past. So in the courtyard of Coventry Cathedral, where the altar was in the old church, there is a cross made out of the charred timbers of the roof of the old cathedral. It says these words, "Father, forgive."
I remember standing there at that site wondering how this congregation was able to choose forgiveness over hatred and revenge. This charred cathedral is a testimony to the healing power of God’s love and forgiveness. But it’s only as we first walk through the charred past of our sins, that we are able to enter into the new future that God has in store for us, a future of love and forgiveness.
In Psalm 130, we hear these words of hope and new life – “Out of the depths I cry to you, O God; God, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy. If you, O God, mark our guilt, who can stand? But with you is forgiveness, and for this we revere you.”
John Newton who wrote the lyrics of the hymn, “Amazing Grace” is quoted as saying, “Although my memory is fading, I remember two things very clearly. I am a great sinner. And Christ is a great Savior.”
Newton, who before his conversion was a captain of a ship that transported slaves during the 18th century didn’t deny his many sins when he wrote, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found; was blind, but now I see.”
Psalms of lament help us to not only express our sense of loss and sorrow for our sins, but thirdly, they also help us to express whenever we feel lost. Have you been there? Maybe you’re there right now, where you feel disoriented and confused about your direction in life. Psalms of lament can help us to express that feeling of being lost so that we can find our way again.
Some people have a better sense of direction than others. Have you ever noticed that? When one of our kids was in High School marching band, Penny and I went to mapquest to get directions to go to one of the away football games which was about a 45 minute drive for us.
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The directions worked really well until we got off the highway. It had us turn onto this one lane road that went straight down a hill into a secluded wooded area. It started as a paved road but then turned into a dirt road.
I thought that maybe it was a back road that would take us to the high school but instead it became a dead end with thick woods preventing us from going any farther. I felt embarrassed and confused but then in my rearview mirror there were other cars immediately behind us that had made the same mistake.
One time, I was in Michigan and driving back to Ohio when I ran into a detour. My GPS recalculated sending me a different route. But something didn’t seem right and when I clicked on my GPS to bring up a map of where I was located, it had a picture of my car driving through the Atlantic Ocean just off the coast of Africa.
Even with modern day technology, it’s still easy to get lost. The bible recognizes this and provides us with psalms of lament whenever we feel disoriented and we get lost in our spiritual journey. This sense of feeling lost may be due to a major change that has happened in our lives and we don’t know what direction to go.
Sometimes life is unfair and it makes us question our faith and the meaning of life. It’s times like this that some of the Psalmists offer their psalms of lament expressing that feeling of being lost and in need of direction.
Listen to this Psalmist from Psalm 77 who is feeling lost in life. “I cried aloud to you, O God, I cried, and you heard me. In the day of my distress I sought you, Lord, and by night I stretched out my hands in prayer. I lay sweating and nothing would cool me; I refused all comfort. When I remembered you, I groaned; as I pondered, darkness came over my spirit. My eyelids would not close; I was troubled and I could not speak.”
But then listen to the change of tone by the end of this same Psalm. The Psalmist says, “Your path led through the sea, your way was through mighty waters, and no one marked your footsteps. You guide your people like a flock of sheep, under the hand of Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.”
Because God has guided and directed the people of Israel in the past, God will do the same for this Psalmist and for us as well.
These are the main areas of Psalms of lament – when we have experienced a death or a loss, when we have sinned, and whenever we feel lost and in need of direction.
To help us use Psalms of lament in our daily living, in your bulletin, I have provided a listing of Psalms of lament according to different pictures of who God is.
The different circumstances include God, the merciful forgiver; the just judge; the healer of confusion & uncertainty; the one who answers our pleas; the one who acts too slowly; and the ultimate avenger.
Today is Trinity Sunday, a day in the church year for us to remember that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; one God known in three persons.
By remembering that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we remember that whenever we offer our laments, we are praying to God the Father, who created the world to be a place of love, peace, harmony, joy, and fulfillment. And whenever this world is anything less than this, we know that God shares in our lament.
We also offer our prayers to God the Son, who wept at the tomb of his good friend Lazarus and who told Mary and Martha who were also grieving, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”
And when God the Son hung on the cross, he was lamenting all three areas that we find in the psalms of lament. He was experiencing a sense of loss as he was offering his very life by dying on the cross. He was experiencing the pain of sin as he was taking upon himself the sins of the world. And he was experiencing loneliness and a sense of abandonment as he hung on the hard wood of the cross.
And when we pray to God, the Holy Spirit, we pray to the one who promises to always be with us until that time when Jesus will return and God will make all things new. The Holy Spirit is who provides us guidance whenever we feel lost and in need of direction.
By praying to God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we are praying to the one who understands our cries of lament.
And this is why the Apostle Paul can write in his letter to the Thessalonian Christians whenever they face grief and loss, “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died.”
We do not need to grieve as those who have no hope. We grieve and offer our prayers of lament to the one who is more than able to make all things new.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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