Lament and longing. . .

Most of the time lament is equated with complaint -- with the whine of a people discontent with the state of affairs in their lives, in their families, in their work, and in their world.  There is not doubt that we are unhappy.  Every poll known to us in the past decades points to an ever increasing number of people who are depressed or in despair over the state of things at home and everywhere else.  Polls tell us that people are by and large unhappy with politics, the nation, the police, the media, and even themselves.  Their lives are not what they wanted or expected and certainly not what they think they deserve.  But this litany of discontent is not quite lament.

Lament does not begin with how bad things are but with a vision of what should be.  Lament is borne of those who know what they were promised and what will come, eventually.  Lament is less complaint than it is longing -- the longing for the more you have been promised but which is not yet.  It is the ache of a people who know what they have been promised but who see around them no sign of that promise and every evidence of what is wrong.  In contrast to that which the world confuses with lament, this is not mere dissatisfaction.  It is the vision of a people for the fullness of God's promise but without evidence that they can see which would signal the world or they are moving toward that promise.  Complaint may be legitimate and heartfelt but it is not lament until that which is longed for is known and that which prevents is also known.

The Christian laments not out of despair but as the hungry who desire to eat but it is not yet ready, not yet the time to feast.  They lament what they know is coming but is not yet.  They can smell it it and have its foretaste upon their lips but even with the table set and the food cooking they know it is not yet time to eat.  While the hungry may simply find this to be torture, for the Christian it is the joyful anticipation of what is to come lived out within the tension of what already is but disappoints.  The Christian who laments is not so much expressing disappointment as he is wanting with limited patience the fulfillment of the promise and the replacement of the temporary with the eternal.  

The Christian does not put hope in the world, in its powers and authorities, or in the might of its power.  The Christian does not reject the world simply as bad but acknowledges it as God's gift spoiled not because of God but because of u.s.  It is God's gift through which hope is given of life restored.  We are raised up in hope, sealed in this hope, sustained by this hope, and finally delivered by this hope promise to the hopeful.  We are not complaining but, like the child, so longs for what is to come that we are always asking the Lord, are we there yet?

The Christian know that in this lament the object of his hope is not delayed by a dilly dallying God nor is it lost to a God who has changed His mind..  No, we know full well that what is hoped for is distant to us because of sin and we have caused our own grief over the question of who we are and who we shall be.  Sin has caused the grief of this tension between what we see and what we hope for and for the distance between this hope and its fullest realization.

The Christian also knows one thing more.  God has not left us with just the disappointment we caused ourselves but has delivered us from all our troubles.  This deliverance we know now by faith and not by sight.  It is hidden but not unknown.  It is just not yet.  We know of it by faith.  We see it through the lens of the cross and empty tomb and we receive its promise through the means of grace.  There we are delivered up to God and the gifts of God delivered down to us.  We do not lament because the world is very evil and we may be lost but because we want the ending instead of abiding by faith in the promise.  

The Lord grants us this lament not as punishment we must bear but as the cross borne by those who know what should be and what will be but do not yet see it.  It is the tension of faith.  We long for the full and yet we also rejoice in our sufferings now because we are the incomplete longing for completion.  Unlike the world that does not know what it wants or believes or values, we know and God has revealed it to us.  Real lament proceeds from faith and flows to God's ancient and abundance promise to deliver His people from their sin and to everlasting life.