It was 1997. A new album had come out from a musician I really liked and I was looking forward to listening to it. I had a couple albums that Jeff Johnson had done before, but at this point his music was somewhat new to me. The CD had a Latin title, Navigatio, and was what is sometimes referred to as a concept album. It used the music to tell the story of the voyage of an Irish saint named Brendan, who I really knew nothing about. This album is where I really fell in love with Jeff Johnson’s music, though most of the songs were unusual enough that I didn’t necessarily like them on the first listen. But there was one that jumped out right away to me. I had to listen to it again right after it finished and found myself singing along with it before I’d even heard it all the way through.
Here I am, fifteen years later, Jeff Johnson is still my favorite musical artist. My collection of music by him has grown exponentially. I’ve even been able to meet him twice at worship services that he’s led and have an ongoing email relationship with him. My two year old son is named after the saint that that album was about. And I find myself regularly going back to that song I heard 15 years ago when I feel that I’m in the midst of lament, needing to call out to God from a place of need, from a place of hopelessness, that he would grant me faith and hope. We even sang the song as a part of our worship service this morning, I Call to You.
Let us open in prayer
I. Lament, Hesed, Presence
We finished up our study this morning of the Michael Card book on lament entitled A Sacred Sorrow. We learned a couple things during it, perhaps most importantly that we need to move on to something a bit more joyful. But that aside, we’ve learned about the Jewish concept of hesed. Or at least we’ve learned how to say it. It is a very difficult word to translate because it is so packed with meaning. In the Bible it is usually translated as “lovingkindness”, but it’s meaning is actually quite a bit more than that. It refers to a love for enemies. It refers to the great Presence of God. God’s hesed is more than just a love for us, it is an undeserved love that is deeper than we can possibly imagine. It is also God’s response to our pain and God’s response to our suffering. When we come before God in lament, his response it to share his hesed with us.
The other main theme that we talked about through the study was the fact that lament throughout the Bible is all a question about the Presence of God. Lament happens when someone feels that God is not present, that God is absent from them and their pain. Lament happens when someone feels that they cannot connect with God at all, for whatever reason; and the reasons can be diverse. Perhaps you feel separated from God because your pain is so great; perhaps you feel separated from God because events in life haven’t gone as you have hoped or planned and you wonder how God could be in control; perhaps it is because of a sin or sins in your life that seem insurmountable, that seem to put you beyond God’s reach; perhaps you are just going through one of those wilderness times in your life where God seems foreign and distant.
In evangelical circles we are often told that this is not where we should be as Christians. When we are having those dry spells we think that there’s something wrong with us, that we aren’t the Christians we are supposed to be. So we fake it. We pretend that we’re fine. We pretend that everything is great. And we find ourselves moving farther and farther away from God. I hope by now you know that this isn’t the way to respond to those dry spells. I hope by now you see that throughout scripture God’s people found themselves in the wilderness again and again, it was a part of the journey they were on, a part of the life they lived, and God would use those times where they felt distant from God to grow their faith.
I mean, isn’t that the very definition of faith? Faith is believing what we cannot see. If we always felt close to God, there would be no need for faith at all. And when we go to the Bible we see that it is full of people calling out to God. And they find themselves in times of lament, pouring out their souls to a God whose Presence they cannot see.
II. Lamenting the Normal Things
But I don’t want to spiritualize this all too much. The fact is that most of our time of lament, most of our time of pain, most of our time of sorrow has nothing really to do with God, at least not at first glance. Rather, we find ourselves dealing with the normal problems of life: loneliness, loss, depression. Oh, it can lead to a question of God’s Presence, of how a loving God can let difficult times come upon those who he loves, but that isn’t where the real pain is coming from. The pain comes from friends who have excluded you or loved ones who have left you or circumstances that have harmed you. And sometimes, as you go through these difficult times, the question of God is the farthest thing from your mind.
But here’s the thing, though God and his Presence may be the farthest thing from your mind, you are very much on his mind. He’s there, ready to help you, ready to meet you, ready to show you that he is present even in the junk you’re dealing with. All you have to do is take that junk you’re dealing with and turn it towards him.
III. Lament leads to the Cross
In Psalm 22 we get a psalm of lament where David, probably before he was king, probably as he was running for his life pursued by armies led by King Saul, calls out to a God who seems to have abandoned him… but we also get more than that.
We also get a psalm that is a prophecy of what it is that Jesus is going to go through on the cross. It is actually almost impossible to read this psalm and not see Jesus in it, and not see the cross in it. It begins with the very words that Jesus spoke as he hung there, dying for our sins. Well, that makes sense, he was quoting the psalm in his head. But it does more than that. It describes him. It tells of his hands and feet being pierced. It talks of his clothes being gambled for. It talks of the mocking that Jesus experienced, a mocking that came from people that thought, perhaps, that Jesus thought too much of himself and his relationship with the Father. “He trusts in the Lord, let the Lord rescue him.” The very sentiment that Jesus heard as he hung on the cross.
This psalm is so much about Jesus on the cross that in Hebrews 2:12 it is quoted as coming from Jesus’ mouth. And it’s not a part of the psalm that has to do with suffering that is quoted. Rather, it is a part of it that talks about praising God in the assembly. The author of Hebrews, though, doesn’t see these as words from David, but rather words from Jesus himself. The fact that Psalm 22 is about Jesus stands out and is incredibly powerful and amazing, especially since it was written about 1000 years before Jesus came into this world. But I don’t want that to take away from the fact that it is also about David and his own pain and difficulty.
You see, when we see that it is about both we are able to see that God does meet us in those times of loneliness, of depression, of loss. Though we might not feel like it, he is there. He meets us there at the cross. He meets us there with his own suffering. David’s lament was about what he was going through and it pointed to the cross. Our lament can take us to the cross as well. And then we discover that the lament is no longer a lament. It is something more, something wonderful. You see, Psalm 22 changes, it changes from a lament to a celebration, a declaration of praise. A declaration of faith. And it ends in such a strong place. At the end, I will praise God, I will praise God in front of everyone and declare that he has rescued me. I will join with people from around the world, rich & poor, strong & weak, and celebrate the salvation of the Lord. I will watch as all of the people of the earth declare that God has done it. God has triumphed! My pain, my sorrow, my despair will melt away because my God is greater than these.
This is the hope that we look to. This is the good news that we find in the Bible. Life can be difficult. It can be painful. Sometimes it is in the pain where we discover the power of faith. But when we get to those painful times, we can lift them before God. We can complain to God. We can find ourselves lamenting our inability to find God, our lack of faith, our weakness. But our shortcomings are not the end of the story.
Jeff Johnson, who wrote “I Call to You” talks about the song, and about Saint Brendan who he wrote the album about. He has this to say, “While drifting along the world’s edge, the Brendan that I met wrestles with many of the same things with which I struggle. His eyes seek and long for something good, beautiful and true yet seldom does he get more than a glimpse of these. His mind dreams and hopes but his heart more often fears and despairs. He often finds himself alone – not because he does not have friends – but because he pursues the path of faith which ultimately one must follow on their own. He wonders if he has enough faith to continue down the path which he follows… He does not. Yet, always he prays and the King of Love’s good grace sustains him.” May God’s grace, that we find at the cross, sustain us as well. Amen.
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