A couple of nights ago I was treated to a most entertaining sunset serenade. After what seems like weeks of endless rain, there was finally a break in the weather. Late one afternoon the clouds began to part and the sun emerged just in time for me to watch it setting behind the ridge directly across from my front porch. I’ve already come to love sitting on that porch in the mornings, drinking my coffee and communing with the Lord, but on this evening I learned that He saved the best for last. In a matter of minutes the sky went from blue to golden, to purple, and for an encore, a cotton candy pink. I was so engulfed in the kaleidoscope of colors that I barely noticed when the stars began to appear. Before I knew it I was sitting in the stillness of twilight, and that's when all of nature began to express what I am desperately trying to convey through this writing.
I sat in stillness and just listened as frogs, dogs, cows, owls, ducks, donkeys, birds and crickets all voiced their opinions on the beauty being painted across the canvas of the sky. My first thought was how loud all these critters were. My second thought was how beautiful and soothing it all sounded. My third thought was I wonder what they all are really "saying"? Surely they must be filled with the same joy and awe that was lifting up my heart and that’s why they felt compelled to burst into spontaneous song. My heart was lifted up with joy, but was that true of the animals as well?
In reality, I have no idea what they were saying. Their croaks, barks, moos, hoots, quacks, brays, tweets, and chirps all sounded like they were happy, but I really have no way of knowing. What if they were afraid and sending out a warning or crying for help? Perhaps some of them were angry and shouting "Get away from me!" Some of them were likely just looking for a date, or were just really hungry? I don’t know what they were saying because I don’t speak their language.
Truth is, it’s not only animals that I sometimes struggle to understand; sometimes I don’t understand people either, and that includes myself. Many times I've heard my inner voice shouting, "Why did I do that? What was I thinking?" Lately it seems like everyone I talk to is saying the same things, but at the same time we all seem to be talking around the same things. We are either afraid or unsure of how to say what we are really thinking: Am I going to die? Is someone I love going to get sick? What is going to happen to our economy and way of life? How long is this going to last? Sometimes these words come across as anger, sometimes fear, sometimes we even try to make light of them in an effort to ease our concerns with humor. Whether or not we realize it, we are stuttering through trying to speak the language of lamentation.
Lamentation is not a language that most American Christians are fluent in. Lament is not a word that we use very often, unless you count saying the books of the Bible with your children: “….Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, LAMENTATIONS, Ezekiel, Daniel….” Lament may not a word that we use very often, but in our current state of affairs it is a word that we should become familiar with. Rather than just giving a blanket definition from a Bible dictionary, I thought it best to explore this word in its natural habitat, the Bible. God saw fit to dedicate one entire book of the sacred sixty-six to romantic love -- Song of Solomon -- and He also decided we needed a book that was strictly about grieving.
Lamentations is a very unique book, containing five poems by an anonymous author who survived the siege of Jerusalem and is looking back and reflecting on the destruction and the exile that followed. The book of Lamentations is a memorial to the pain and confusion experienced by the Israelites in the wake of the greatest national calamity imaginable. They were a way to process emotion, a way to vent their dismay at the ruin and suffering that had befallen their nation. They were a place to voice confusion. Suffering can sometimes make us question God’s care for us and promises to us, "Why is this happening to me!?" It should be noted that the Bible neither condemns nor discourages this distress driven questioning. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46; Psalm 22:1). Lamentations are precisely the language we need to be able to verbalize the cloud of uncertainty and fear hanging over our nation.
In Lamentations 1, Jerusalem is portrayed as a widow who sits alone, uncomfortable, without her family, and she calls on God to look on her distress. “How deserted lies the city, once so full of people!..The roads to Zion mourn, for no one comes to her appointed festivals. All her gateways are desolate, her priests groan, her young women grieve, and she is in bitter anguish…This is why I weep and my eyes overflow with tears. No one is near to comfort me, no one to restore my spirit.” (1:1,4,16).
In Lamentations 2, the author pleads with God for compassion in the face of suffering, “My eyes fail from weeping, I am in torment within; my heart is poured out on the ground because my people are destroyed” (2:11). Lamentations 4 portrays a world where lifestyles have radically changed, “Those who once ate delicacies are destitute in the streets” (4:5) and Lamentations 5 describes dangers lurking in everyday situations, “We get our bread at the risk of our lives” (5:9).
Neighbors are afraid to interact with one another, “Go away! You are unclean!" people cry to them. "Away! Away! Don't touch us!” (4:15). People locked themselves away in an effort to survive, “from our towers we watched for a nation that could not save us…we could not walk in our streets. Our end was near, our days were numbered, for our end had come” (4:17-18).
Any of this sounding familiar? The circumstances surrounding Jerusalem’s calamities are not identical to ours, but the repercussions and emotions are in lock step. Though not to the extent they faced, our society is enduring many of the same trials, sufferings, and losses that plagued Jerusalem long ago. And yet, right in the middle of this darkness, as the sun is setting on the former glory of Jerusalem, we hear a soft, sweet, song of comfort piercing the night. “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him’” (3:22-24).
The other night I watched as the sun set and the world went dark, but this morning I got to see that same sun rise and the light has returned. The same animals I speculated were a symphony of somber sounds last night had become an orchestra of optimism in the daylight. Things tend to look a little different, a little brighter, in the daylight. “Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning” (Psalm 30:5).
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