Lent 2: Lamentations & Grace, Year C
by The Rev. Ajung Sojwal

Sunday March 4, 2007

For many of us, Lent has a connotation of penance often marked by a symbolic giving up of something that we have gotten used to or depend upon. But most importantly it is a time of introspection as we prepare for the most important celebration in the Christian Calendar, which is Holy Week. For the early church, Lent was the season of final preparation involving strict rules of fasting and prayer for those who were to be baptized at the Easter Vigil. In many parts of the world people still fast for the forty days of Lent, even though they are not preparing for Baptism.

The intentional search for a deeper spirituality during this time of the Church year should actually define our whole life. Indeed, there is plenty of talk and even more books on Christian spirituality nowadays. But I am afraid quite a lot of times the search for a deeper spirituality has had the assumption of finding a state of mind where we can be peaceful and contented. And often, the interpretation of this peaceful and contentedness of mind has to do with learning how to detach ourselves from the pain and sorrow of life. So, should lamentation be even a part of our spiritual discipline? The dictionary definition of lament is to express sorrow, mourning, or regret. And when we think of lamentation, it brings to mind the passionate and demonstrative activity of expressing grief, often related to the death of a loved one.

In our Gospel passage today, Jesus is approached by some Pharisees to warn him that Herod wants to kill Him. They urge Jesus to leave Galilee. Jesus replies that he will certainly be leaving the town but not to escape Herod’s threat, but to fulfil God’s plan for Him in Jerusalem. As soon as the implication of Jesus traveling to Jerusalem is made, He laments for the city. “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” Jesus’ sorrow over Jerusalem is even more pronounced in Luke chapter nineteen where it says that He saw the city and wept over it. If we look at Jesus’ characterization of Jerusalem as the city that stones and kills the prophets sent to it, it looks as if He is lamenting over his own impending death. But then he goes on to express his deep and tender desire to protect the children of Jerusalem.

Some of you might have seen how a mother hen gathers her brood under her wings. I grew up with many animals, including hens. Every evening, just before the sun sets there would be a lot of noise made by the mother hens and their chicks, and slowly but surely every little chick somehow managed to snuggle underneath its mothers wings and every family settled in its own pen for the night. But there were also times when the mother hen would sense danger, especially if the neighbor’s dog happened to come by. At such times, the mother hen would make a particular clucking sound and spread out her wings, and within seconds all her chicks would find their way under the wings and all one could see was the somewhat fat looking hen vulnerable to the dog while her chicks remained hidden and safe. I suspect Jesus was thinking of the second scenario when he was talking about His desire to gather the children of Jerusalem. The symbolism of Jerusalem as a holy city was and is tremendous for the Jewish people. It was the center point of religious practices and institutions, and the stoning and killing of prophets that Jesus is referring to here is in fact what the religious institutions have done in the past in order to eliminate what they perceived as blasphemous teachings. It is ironic that Jesus should be lamenting for Jerusalem’s unwillingness to come under God’s protection while the city itself stands as the faithful protector of the truth of God.

For us, to be a part of Jesus’ lamentation for not only for Jerusalem but also the world is a must if we claim to be His disciples. To talk and understand lamentation as a crucial part of our spiritual journey with God is to realize that we are not only the object of His grief but also participants in His sorrow. Lamenting for our sins of unfaithfulness and unbelief is just one part of our spirituality, the greater part has to do with a desire to enter into lamentation with God for the propensity of human beings toward self-destruction and pain. To be a part of that great lament of God for us is also to realize His desire and purpose to lift us out of that life of self-destruction. That is why God’s lament for us is always accompanied by His tremendous grace. In a sense it is out of His grace that God laments for us. God lamenting is the sign of His desire to save us, and our participation in this godly lament is to desire God’s redemption for the sins of this world. The idea that God is above and beyond suffering and pain is not in keeping with scripture. In fact, every single prophet is sent out to the people to portray God who suffers because of the sins of his people and the consequences they bring.

In this very individualistic world, we put a lot of emphasis on personal responsibility of one’s actions and it is not unusual for us to imagine and hope that our spiritual quest will ultimately make us better persons. And of course, it is God’s own hope that I will be made holy. But in scripture, there is always this communal dimension when it talks about sin and unfaithfulness toward God and nowhere is it more distinct than when there is the portrayal of God’s lamentation over the sins of His people. Jesus cries out, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem!” and there are plenty of instances in the Old Testament where God laments for His people Israel, for the city of Jerusalem, and for gentile cities like Nineveh. Whether we like it or not, there is this profound connection of every individual to the community in all aspects of our lives including our sinfulness. We are called by God to repent of our sins not only as individuals but also as a people, which must necessarily mean that we are all to some extend responsible for the overall sinfulness of the world. And if we understand that kind of connectedness toward each other, we will know what it means to lament with God, and will hopefully lead us to be actively involved in bringing about God’s redemption into our world.

Jesus sat on the hillside outside Jerusalem just a few days before the people of that city would kill him and wept over the city, in Jesus we see God weeping at the failure of his people. The grief of God is indeed very intense, but we also have some sense that while Jesus’ death may and will in fact occur, God’s love is so strong that there is certainly a future beyond death. The quest for a holy and spiritual life must lead us to the source of God’s grief, which is the tendency of the human soul to be sinful and destructive. As a parent I really would not want to know all the mistakes and bad decisions my children would invariably make in their lives, it is already painful enough to see them make small mistakes without much consequence. My pain is not so much that they made the mistake, rather it is the pain of seeing them in some sort of pain or disappointment. How much more grief God must bear knowing all that He knows about us and knowing the full extend of what is at stake here. And what a privilege it is for us to be in the center of God’s own concerns. Knowing what we know about the sinful nature of human beings, we should be in a constant attitude of lamenting before God, not to brood over our sinfulness but to turn to Him for redemption and hope. Like the prophet Jeremiah, we are called to a lifestyle of lamenting that involves the very center of our being, who we are as God’s people.

We might weep and lament for family; perhaps for good people we can weep. But do we and can we weep for the vilest, most ugly, most unattractive sinner? Can we take that extra step to look into the eyes of the murderer, the thief or the pimp and see that it could have been me if not for God’s grace. To realize the eternal hope of God is to know that the same grace that is given to us is available for all.

Terence Fretheim an Old Testament scholar writes in His book “The Suffering of God”

God is not an executioner who can walk away from the judgement exacted, thinking: "I only did my duty." Nor is there any satisfaction, let alone celebration, that justice has now been done. Nor any sense of punitiveness: "They deserved what they got!" . . . For God to mourn with those who mourn is to enter their situation; and where God is at work, mourning is not the end.

This Lent may we all learn to mourn with God, for only within God’s realm of lamenting is there hope for a new day.