Lent 2022 - Lamentation

Read: Psalm 22

The church season of Lent officially begins on Wednesday, known as Ash Wednesday.  This season is often marked by fasting, the giving up of something (often food).  I was not raised in a church that observed Lent, so when I went to college, and it was commonplace amongst many of my college friends and acquaintances, I started to question what it was all about.  I did not get the concept of fasting and only understood Lent as some sad season before Easter.  Needless to say, I was missing the point.  

She Reads Truth describes Lent as “[a] solemn season of self-reflection, repentance, and Scripture meditation as a means of preparing one’s heart and mind to celebrate Easter.”  K.C. Ireton’s book The Circle of Seasons describes it as "a season of preparation."  Reflection, repentance, meditation, and preparation are all good things, but again, what is the point?  

Ireton offers further illumination by saying, “…the point of Lent isn’t what I give up, or even if I give anything up.  The point is that I am intentionally creating space in my life for my relationship with God.”  I understand more now.  

Lent is a time for us to prepare ourselves for the gift of Easter.  It is a specific time for us to focus intentionally on what has separated us from God.  Whether I give anything up in a fast or give extra to charity or spend more time reading the Bible, my focus is on creating space for God.  

I stuff my days full with work, bills, TV, food, stress, and complaints.  How often do I stop and consider the space I give God amidst life's busyness and trials?  Do I look for His innumerable blessings?  Do I respond with gratitude for His good gifts?  No, not often enough.  Instead, I continue to stuff – one more activity, one more worry, one more and more and more.  I am filled to overflowing but feeling as empty and meaningless as if I were a drained glass of water.  I can identify with the psalmist when he cries out, “ My God, I cry by day, but you do not answer,/by night, yet I have no rest” (Psalm 22:2).  I am restless, not restful.  I am anxious, not peaceful.  I am discontent, not grateful.  

I cry out to God, but the noise of life drowns out His answers.  I can understand why the psalmist cries out, "Don’t be far from me, because distress is near/and there’s no one to help” (Psalm 22:11).  I am distressed and depressed and feel as though there is no one to help, but have I even turned to God?  

There are many reasons for the stress and anxiety in my life, as in all our lives.  My stress and anxiety tend to revolve around work stressors, frustration with individuals and their unhelpful choices, my own inadequacies and insecurities, bills and student loans, national and world politics and their local impacts, not understanding human cruelty and general meanness.  I wonder where God is in the mess.  And when Paul writes in Romans, “For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together with labor pains until now,” I actually feel comfort from the fact that creation itself is under siege; I am not alone in feeling the brokenness (8:22).  If creation itself mourns and groans, how can we not also grieve the pain of our brokenness and fallen nature?  

I think Lent gives us the opportunity to lament, to mourn the brokenness of our world and our own fallen sin natures.  It gives us time to consider just how badly we have messed things up.  Lent permits us to grieve and to acknowledge our part in the mess.  I do not mean that we should sit and wallow in despair and self-pity (don't worry, I am actually preaching to myself here), but instead, we need to enter into the gift of lamentation, the holiness of expressing our heartfelt grief to God.  

Bottling up our grief and anxiety over our brokenness does us no favors.  I know.  I've gotten to the point where I need to change my antidepressants again because I cannot manage my current levels of depression and anxiety.  I am not sleeping well.  I am dwelling on future worries and present concerns.  And I'm stuffing it all down, and I will keep stuffing it down until it erupts (for me – that's a panic attack).  

I have yet to learn the practice of lamentation, of sitting with my grief and mourning loss and brokenness.  This is holy work.  Lamenting and mourning allow us to agree with God that we live in a broken world and are lost without Him.  Lamentation is a cathartic practice, releasing the pain and hurt that would otherwise bottle up and fester.  

Here is the beauty of lamentation, once we release the pain and disappointment, we create space for something else.  The psalmist writes, “I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters;/I will praise you in the assembly./You who fear the Lord, praise him!/All you descendants of Jacob, honor him!/All you descendants of Israel, revere him!/For he has not despised or abhorred/the torment of the oppressed./He did not hide his face from him/but listened when he cried to him for help” (Psalm 22:22-24).  We create space to worship God.  We can remember who He is and who we are because of Him.

God does not leave us in our pain or disappointment or grief.  Instead, He sits with us until we have released it, and then He reminds us that He was there all along.  

As the season of Lent draws near, take time to reflect on what you have been keeping from God.  Then, perhaps it is time to release it back to Him, and give your heart the chance to heal in His holy presence.