Are We A Lamenting Church?

Two events in our area are kind of coming together into a season of lament for the communities in the New York City metro area. Thankfully we were spared damage in the hurricane, but many of my friends and people at church suffered damage. As I drove to a friend’s house on Tuesday to help with flooding, I went through detour after detour. Frustrated by how long it took me to travel what is normally such an easy trip, it was haunting to witness destruction from my car in stop-and-go traffic. Rivers undercutting interstate highways. Submerged houses. Block upon block of damaged property stacked high and wide for trash pickup that will take weeks. The police called in for looters and garbage thieves. It was enough to make one numb.

And in just a week will be the tenth anniversary of the September 11th attack. As someone who moved to this area a few years after the attacks, its been a bit bewildering to be placed into an area where so much suffering has been pushed aside for necessity as life goes on. But the hurt is still there, and this anniversary many are finally preparing to deal with some of the emotions they have held in check for so many years.

Our church is basically entering into two straight weeks of lament. This Sunday will be the hurricane. Next week will be September 11th.

The question is: do we know how to lament?

In our contemporary American Christianity when every church advertisement and production is all smiling families and up beat well groomed pastors, do we know how to properly lament before God?

I think we know how to respond to tragedy as best as we can. But in the Scriptures we witness so many of the prophets and stories of God’s people not only respond to tragedy but actually become tragedy. To dress in sackcloth and ashes. To indwell destruction and horror in order to overcome it.

We respond so that we can cope. What we need to do is participate in the grief so that we can do more than cope, we can become despair.

How can we through Christ actually become grief, so that those around us may grieve? In other words, how do we not only voice our despair and lament, but become despair and lament, that others may see through us to Christ, who dispels the darkness?