Lament and Hope

Today's readings: Isaiah 64:1-9; Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18; 1 Corinthians 1:3-9; Mark 13:24-37

Today is the 1st Sunday in advent: the beginning of a new year! And like it is with most beginnings, we find ourselves filled with hope, promise, and the expectation of opportunities. We have 4 weeks to prepare ourselves for the coming again of the Christ Child (not just to cook, and shop and party!): to hope that it will make a change, to think about the promises of our God and to expect opportunities for new things to happen – changes in our lives and in the world.

But before we can truly start that journey towards the Christ Child we begin by lamenting, by lamenting our own sorry situation and the situation in the world.
We heard a big lament in the Isaiah reading:
“Oh, that you would tear open the heavens and come down”
“You were angry, and we sinned because you hid yourself (trying to blame God)…but you are our Father, we’re the work of your hands….” Please, please
and in the psalm – “Restore us, O God, let your face shine …”
and we move through that lamenting with Hope.

We all have personal times of despair – times when it seems that God has forgotten us, or is very far away – and heaven knows, there is much to cry out about in the world today: why do you let unspeakable things happen in India? Will the war in Afghanistan never end?

And we Hope for salvation, for healing, for God’s coming to us and presence with us, to help us.

There are two important things about Lament:
it needs to be given space, to be expressed;
we move on in Hope – lament is not a place to stay and wallow – we move on, actively hoping and waiting for God’s coming into our situation.

We lament the death of a loved one, the end of a relationships, serious illness… and we stay with that reality / emotion long enough to really feel it – to live through it, but live through it, with Hope, we must!

There is a story of a little church of 55 people with a 12- person choir! And they had a wonderful and gifted choir director. And for 4 years they did anthems, and prayers, and special music, and led the congregation in singing and dancing and praising God in all sorts of musical ways: they were renowned. And suddenly, one day, the choir director’s partner died of cancer, and he just couldn’t do it anymore. And when he did come to church, he just sat there and cried. And gradually choir members drifted away, and people mourned with him, and cried with him, and prayed to God, when will we sing again? For 2 years they had no choir. They gave him space to lament; they honoured his grief and their own at the loss of the wonderful music, and they waited in hope that one day he would return to the choir, or God would send another person gifted with those abilities. And finally, he found God’s music in his heart again… Lament needs to be expressed, and that opens the way for Hope, for the hope that God will lead us again to Light and Life.

I can relate it to my own story – many of you know that I have experienced some hard times of ‘renovation burnout’ over the past few months. I’ve cried out saying, ‘will it ever be finished?’, ‘will we ever have free time again?’, ‘will we be warm enough this winter?’…but I don’t expect anyone to take over and finish it for us: I just need to be able to say it as it is! Don’t try to ‘jolly me up’ – just acknowledge my pain. I must live through it, experience it, learn from it (not to take on such an enormous project – ever again! ) and eventually be able to look forward in Hope to the completion, one step at a time … the restoring of order and balance in my life!

We lament that our congregation is smaller than it used to be – people have died, people have moved away, people have stopped coming regularly on Sunday morning for various reasons. Perhaps we need to cry out intentionally to God about that… to express our loss, our disappointment. Perhaps we need to admit that we may have offended someone, we may not have been as welcoming or generous or compassionate as we might have been…

And we hope for a new day! The time comes when we begin to live again, with Hope in our hearts. Hope that God will continue to be present among us, and will show us a new direction! Hope that we still have a job to do in the Kingdom, and that we can open our hearts to hear God calling us. The reading from Paul’s list letter to the Corinthians points to our hope: we have been enriched in Christ Jesus, not lacking any spiritual gifts as we wait … he will strengthen us to the end: God is faithful! We have symbols in the church this month to help us remember that: the evergreens remind us of God’s never-fading commitment to us and the blue candles in our wreath signify Hope.

Lament recognizes the Reality that to be alive is to suffer loss and grief: once we name that loss and pain we can work towards wholeness and health and healing. Psychologists tell us that until we admit/identify our feelings, we can’t move ahead…we can’t really do anything with or about them.

Lament is honest; it recognizes God’s presence; it trusts; and it unites us with others who suffer: family, neighbours, people around the world…

So, as we set out on our Advent path this year, we start with a time of transition: we lament the past and our present situation; we long for God to come back into our lives in a powerful way; and we begin to express that longing with Hope and conviction and trust in God’s promises as we set out to make the journey, once more,from darkness to Light.