Judging the Usefulness of Lament in Contemporary Christianity - a podcast by Jonathan Michael Jones

Of all Old Testament
genres, lament is perhaps one of the least understood and misrepresented. A
lament, while surely a complaint, possesses a deeper root of understanding
about God and his sovereign power. One who laments should have in mind not a
mere complaint about undesired external circumstances but the purpose of God’s
action to allow such circumstances. The book of Lamentations is perhaps the
most striking example of biblical lament; yet, numerous other examples are also
present. As an overarching model for lament, the book of Lamentations grants
contemporary Christians insight into the unchanging character of God and their
own connection with the people of God in the Old Testament.

The
book of Lamentations is made up of five poems, each an expression of grief over
the fall of Jerusalem. Like a eulogy at a funeral, these laments are intended
to mourn a loss—in this case, the loss of a nation. The latter half of chapter
3 implies that the purpose behind the book’s graphic depictions of sorrow and
suffering was to produce hope in the God whose compassion is “new every
morning” (v. 23) and whose faithfulness is great even to a people who have been
condemned for their own unfaithfulness. The author, while not identified in the
book itself, may have been the prophet Jeremiah, who was said to have “uttered
a lament for Josiah.” (2 Chron 35:25) Lamentations was probably written shortly
after Jerusalem’s fall in 586 b.c. (ESV,
2016)

This paper will
determine the usefulness of lament in a contemporary Christian context. In
doing so, three truths will be conveyed: 1) the truth of New Testament
parallels of Old Testament lament, 2) the truth of lament’s vitality to right
doxology, and 3) the truth that nothing new exists in this world. Upon
examining these truths, it should be concluded that lament is not only good for
contemporary Christianity but also necessary.

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