Alistair McKenzie: 18/9/2011 – Lament and Hope 2
admin January 6th, 2012
Today we’re continuing last week’s story about lament and hope. Last week we majored on lament but this week we’re looking at the movement towards hope in the midst of lament. A movement that we’ve already seen is part of most of the lament psalms. In fact all but a couple move from lament to hope. Not necessarily by resolving the circumstances that have caused the Psalmist distress. But movement more in terms of expressions of despair giving way to expressions of hope and praise.
Let’s listen to that same Psalm Helen read to us form last week. Psalm 42
There’s a song by Leonard Cohen that seems to me very close to the message of the Psalms. Most of you know that I think Bob Dylan is king really. But if you haven’t yet seen the DVD of Leonard Cohen live in London you’ve missed a treat. And one of the highlights of that concert is his song called anthem. And when he sang this song live in the Stadium at Addington a couple of years ago the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. And the words of the chorus of this song go like this:
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
This seems to me very close to the message of the Psalms of lament.
That just as light can’t be really appreciated, or the difference it makes be discerned, apart from the experience of darkness. So our hope as Christians is really only something we are forced to reach out to grasp in the context of separation and pain and suffering. And so we find this interplay between anguish and hope in the psalms. And a movement from despair to hope. But not according to any particular pattern or formula.
Sometimes these psalms move quickly from anguish to resolution to praise. Sometimes they mix things up. Like for example Psalm 12 where there is a movement from anguish to faith and hope but still in a context where the strife continues.
But still other psalms show no movement. Just people who are stuck like Job full of complaints but nothing has changed. Like Psalm 88 in which the Psalmist talks about being stuck in the depths of the Pit deserted by his friends and cast off by God. And that’s the way it starts and ends. Although, in fact, there are only a couple of Psalms like that.
Of course our inclination is to want to rush through the anguish to a quick resolution. From prison to praise as quick as we can.
But in the Psalms there just isn’t a formula for rapid resolution. Things take as long as they take and are often very messy. And some things can’t ever be neatly resolved in this life. All we can say is that the backdrop of the rest of the bible story in which we find these laments says that God is with us in our suffering and he does see and hear and care and he has come down to rescue us as we said last week based on God’s message to Moses in Exodus chapter 3.
But given that this is such a clear movement in most of the Psalms where do the Psalmists draw their hope from? And how do we rediscover hope in the midst of really distressing circumstances?
Well, I want to talk some more about this in just a few minutes but first Pete will speak to us, then I will talk again briefly and then Peter will lead us through to some concluding acts of worship in which we can make our responses to God and particularly as we share in the Lord’s supper.
Because certainly the punchline for us must be this. That in Jesus we meet one who uses the very words of the lamenting Psalmist himself and applies them to his own agony. Agony which we believe he endured for our sakes and to let us know that not only is God able to understand our anguish but he has tasted it himself firsthand in Jesus and knows what it is to lament from the inside of life both as the tormented son and the grief stricken father. And so this is the one to whom we turn when we look for hope in the midst of despair.
But how do we really nourish that hope and what might it involve?
Well we’ll come back to my thoughts on that in a few minutes but first some thoughts from Pete….. ….
As I said before I want to just briefly explore how we can nourish hope and three dimensions of what it seems to me this involves. And so I want to talk about sources of hope in terms of past, present and future dimensions.
The past picks up on the theme of remembering that we often find in the Psalms. Remembering that recalls and retells the stories of the acts of God in the past. Psalm 42 that we read from before says
“These things I remember as I pour out my soul. How I used to go to the house of God under the protection of the Mighty One”.
And “My soul is downcast, therefore I will remember you”
I love the writings of Frederick Beuchner and there is a great sermon by him entitled “A room called remember”. Its about a place that any of us can book into any time that is full of memories that can help to make us feel at home and at peace. Not the dark and sinister memories of things we would rather forget. But the encouraging memories of things we need to hold on to and must not forget, although often we do.
And Beuchner says we need to make time for remembering on purpose. A deeper and slower kind of remembering. Remembering as searching and finding. To grasp the trajectory of the journey that we are on and the foundations that have already been laid and to remember those on whose shoulders we stand. This is remembering as a kind of prayer.
The Psalmist David says Give praise to the Lord. Make known his deeds among the peoples. Remember the wonders he has done, his miracles and the judgements he has pronounced.
So Beuchner says “when we enter that room called remember at last we see what hope is and where it comes from, hope as the driving power and the outermost edge of faith. Hope stands up to its knees in the past and keeps its eyes on the future. There has never been a time past when God wasn’t with us as the strength beyond our strength and the wisdom beyond our wisdom, as whatever it is in our hearts that keeps us human enough at least to get by, despite everything in our lives that tends to wither the heart and make us less than human. To remember the past is to see that we are here today by grace, that we have survived as a gift. So “hope stands up to its knees in the past and remembers”.
And so when Jesus took the bread and cup at the last supper he said do this and remember me. And so the Lords Supper is one invitation to enter the room called remember.
But not only in the sense of remembering things past. This bread is my body this cup is God’s new covenant sealed with my blood. Not just the memory of events past But also the promise of the presence of this one with us now. Like the experience of those men on the road to Emmaus who didn’t realise who the stranger was who walked with them along the road until they broke bread together at the end of that journey and they suddenly woke up to the fact that the risen Jesus had been with them all the time and they were actually sitting at the table with him without even realising it. Because his promise is Lo I will be with you always.
Not promising that we will always clearly discern his presence.
But promising that he is there whether we do or not. Because the key thing is not how tightly we are holding on to God but how firmly he is holding onto us. And he is.
Because he does see and he does hear and he does care and he has come down to rescue us. And he is Emmanuel God with us and God with us right now and wherever we are.
And so here are the past and present aspects of hope.
But then there is also the future. The hope we look forward to.
The promise that the way things are is not the way they will always be. The promise that the loose ends of history will be sewn up. That justice will be done and evil dealt with. And there will be an end to suffering and sadness and disillusionment and despair. And this broken city we now live in will be transformed into a different kind of redeemed city with a garden at its centre and a river running through it as a home for people from all nations to live in and to live at one.
In Hebrews chapter 11 we read it was by faith that Abraham lived in a tent while he looked forward to that city with foundations whose architect and builder is God. For faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we don’t yet see. And living in the light of that vision now. Living as both signs and agents of that future kingdom.
And so as we come to the Lord’s Supper in a few minutes time we not only come to remember the past and celebrate the present but we also do this in remembrance until he comes. And looking forward to that ultimate table that we will all sit down to feast at in the full presence of God. The past and the future. Memory and expectation. Remember and hope. Remember and wait.
For him who we have until now only caught the most faint of glimpses of yet who we will see face to face and immediately recognise and not as a threat but as the fulfilment of our deepest longings. The one who did himself lament My God my God why have you forsaken me. But who now comes, having tasted our suffering first-hand, to deal with every fear in our hearts and to wipe away every tear from our eyes.
Because ultimately our hope is not in a formula or a prophecy or a promise or a doctrine, but a person. One who has come and is always coming and yet who is also still to come. Jesus is our hope. To remember him who always remembers us.
