The Place Of Lament In The Christian Life -- By: Brian L. Webster

Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 164:656 (Oct 2007)
Article: The Place Of Lament In The Christian Life
Author: Brian L. Webster


The Place Of Lament In The Christian Life

Brian L. Webster

David R. Beach

Brian L. Webster is Associate Professor of Old Testament Studies, Dallas Theological Seminary, and David R. Beach is Counselor, 4 Health Family Resource Center, Saranac, Michigan, and Adjunct Professor of Spiritual Formation, Cornerstone University, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

“I wish the pathologists then would tell us what is the use of grief in the economy, and of what good it is the cause, proximate or remote.”—Thomas Jefferson to John Adams1

Lament As Response To Pain

When deep pain invades life, it demands a response. Some of life’s pains are deeper than others and therefore more difficult to respond to. For many Americans the attacks on September 11, 2001, were a mind-staggering event. Two landmarks of the New York City skyline crashed to the ground, killing thousands who had sought no conflict with their attackers. There were immediate responses at the site—attempts to escape the building’s collapse, emergency personnel implementing a disaster plan. Watching or hearing of it at a distance, many felt stunned. Meanwhile America’s enemies around the world responded with celebration. The aftermath required more than physical cleanup and the need to establish new national policies. A combination of questions and moans imposed themselves on people’s minds as they grappled to make sense of the events and mourn their losses.

Pain, loss, injustice, anxiety—these can lead to lament as a vehicle of response.

Lament, however, is not limited to national disasters. Lament need not be kept in a vault to be retrieved and dusted off for events that occur only once in a decade or century. Lament in the Bible speaks of betrayal and abandonment, disappointment with God, injustice and enemy attacks, illness and death. It is both personal and corporate. Lament psalms are the most common type of psalms, which indicates that lament was voiced regularly.2 But a survey of most hymnals shows a startling lack of hymns that express lament, a gap also noted in contemporary Christian music.

This dearth of expression of lament in Christian music contrasts with the fact that many books address the subject of pain. Two of C. S. Lewis’s works about pain illustrate this variety. A Grief Observed chronicles his experience and reflections on the loss of his wife,3 while The Problem of Pain is an apologetic addressing the que...

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