Lament and the Mission of God (3)
Part 3: God Laments
In the first article of this series, I concluded that ‘the Bible teaches that God has provided lament as a means of grace through which we can express our grief, renew our trust in him, experience his redemptive grace, and discover God’s purposes beyond our pain.’ I believe this not because the Bible is a textbook that teaches us how to handle grief and loss, but because the Bible is the revelation of God’s redemptive heart. Through that revelation, we learn that God is a lamenting God. In the second article of this series, I shared part of my testimony of how I encountered God’s grace when I experienced deep lament after the death of my wife.
Many may assume that lamenting is a uniquely human instinct—a coping mechanism to handle grief within this broken world. However, as I’ve reflected on this, I see lament as something intrinsically linked to being made in the image of God. We have the capacity for lament because God himself laments. Here are three examples from the Bible:
The Father’s Regret
From Genesis 3-6, sin takes hold of early humans. As sin gripped the world after the Fall, we encounter God as increasingly sad. This reaches a climax in Genesis 6:5-6. The NIV says that ‘the LORD regretted that he had made human beings… his heart was deeply troubled.’ The Amplified version says that the LORD was ‘deeply grieved in his heart‘. The heart of the Father is broken by the rejection of his creation. This lament of the Father caused him to act in judgement (the flood) and grace (choosing Noah), foreshadowing how he would act in judgement and grace through the cross. The Father’s heart is still broken by sin, but his mission has been to redeem our sins so that our relationship with him can be restored.
The Son’s Tears
For you or me, what we now call Palm Sunday would have been the highlight of our ministry: the crowds are cheering, prophecies are being fulfilled, and as Jesus is approaching Jerusalem, people are declaring him blessed. Yet, something else is stirring in Jesus’ heart. This is not a moment of vindication or an opportunity to be exploited for personal gain. Rather, he weeps. Luke 19:41 says; ‘As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it.’ He then describes his lament as he foresaw the suffering of the city that would reject him and reject the opportunity for perfect peace (Luke 19:41:44). The lament of Christ didn’t lead him to despair or inaction. Rather, it led to a garden where more tears were shed (drops of blood like tears) as the Son surrendered to the will of the Father so that his ultimate mission would be accomplished—although not in the way the crowds anticipated.
The Spirit’s Concern
In Ephesians 4:30 Paul instructs us (indeed, warns us) not to grieve the Holy Spirit. Our actions as believers can grieve the Holy Spirit. His lament is that we are allowing the world to stunt our growth as Christians and impact our effectiveness in the world (see the surrounding verses in Ephesians 4:29-32). It’s a breathtaking thought the Holy Spirit laments over our continued sinfulness.
Considering just these three examples we can see that the Godhead—Father, Son and Spirit—lament. God laments that we choose death over life. He laments for the pain that his children endure because of sin. And he laments because our sin continues to stunt our growth into the likeness of Christ.
Do we lament over the same things? There is grief within the Trinity and we can conclude that it is godly to grieve. But let our lament align with God’s so that our mission can also align with his. Lament is not the end of the story. And we’ll consider this in more detail in the next article.
