Let's Lament Together

Lamentations might be the most neglected and most relevant book of the Bible. You, me, we need this short book to shape us right now.The first two words of Lamentations are: "How lonely." Those two words describe many of us right now. Lurking in our hearts is the cry of this ancient Hebrew book: how lonely, how hurt, how sad, how angry, how devastated, how dazed, how uncertain, how afraid, how exhausted sits my soul and my city. After the violent and traumatic fall of Jerusalem in 587 B.C., a poet wrote Lamentations to help himself and his city process their pain and seek a renewed relationship with God.We neglect Lamentations because it's a sad and difficult book. But we need it. We've been living through a sad and difficult time, and this neglected book will help us unlock and use and a neglected part of being human: the ability to face the sad and difficult—the lost language of lament.What's so special about this book is that, like the Psalms, it speaks both to us and for us. These five tear-soaked chapters, which are five intense poems, have the power to unlock your heart and your voice to be real with God and your community.Life won't feel like this forever. We will eventually arrive at going about life much like we did before the virus hit. But, do not make the mistake of trying to rush to that future, of not facing, feeling, and voicing the sadness and loss. To skip lament is to live fake, to be fake. Your peace would be a false and shallow "okayness," not the cleansing freedom of standing on the other side of true and vigorous lament.This Sunday I start a five-week sermon series on Lamentations. If you don't have a church home, I invite you to tune in with Garden City on Sundays (all our Sunday content will go live at 7 a.m. Pacific time on Sunday) as we learn to lament together. [mc4wp_form id="9268”]