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Lamenting Like Jesus
Brian Mashburn
May 12, 2013
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Lamentations
Things are not as God intended.
Things are off. There is proof of this everywhere. Girls are kidnapped and imprisoned for years. Cancer strikes 19-year olds and 87-year olds. Surgeries are sometimes needed. Surgeries are sometimes botched. Cars crash. Music, drugs, and sex are used to hurt people as much as they are used to serve. There is poverty. There is sickness. There is inequity. There is hunger. There is thirst. People hurt people. People kill people. People lie to people. People cheat people. Things are off.
Usually, when such things enter our lives personally, we want to "do something about it." And this is good.
But what do you do when you can't?
What do you do when your longings are disappointed by a reality that you have no control over it? You lose a parent, or a child. You lose a friend due to a misunderstanding. You see a preferred future so clearly but can't rally the troops you need to create it. Addiction grips someone you love. Whatever it is, what do you do when you have no control?
You lament. You "be with" your sorrow, express it, and be sad about it. There is something that happens in the human being that can only happen this way. It is tragic that this is a lost discipline in so much of Christianity.
Christ lamented. Today, we follow Christ into some lamentations of our own. Not to be sad, but to be changed. To be healed. To be real, and experience God.