1 & 2 Samuel Series - Lament
27th of June 2021
Reading: 2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27
A few years ago, I had an interesting conversation with someone about the Psalms. This person had come to me with a reasonable question to ask a pastor – they came asking me how they might learn to pray. Amongst other things, I encouraged them to read the Psalms as a way of learning how to pray.
They came back a week or two later frustrated and said: “I can’t believe you recommended the Psalms to me. They are so horribly depressing.” I guess they had got up to Psalm 13, perhaps 22, maybe even Psalm 88. That one is bleak.
“Yes, that’s true, many of the Psalms are sad”, I replied.
“Well, I wanted something that would cheer me up a bit, not the kind of morbid stuff I found in the Psalms.”
It turned out that as we talked more, that what this man wanted was something to help him escape the realities that he was facing. He was going through the ups and downs of life and wanted a positive coach. What he found when turned to the Bible was something far more honest – and a little unsettling.
Of course, alongside the honesty of the Psalms which highlight the suffering we experience in life, there is also the hope articulated by the good news of Jesus.
But what we have in the Bible is a book that is honest about the reality of being human. The good bits and the hard bits, and the weird and wonderful too.
This honesty and depth can be a source of great healing and encouragement if we are willing to face the reality of our own suffering.
But in our cultural climate we are often looking for something else. In our technological society we are looking for a ‘quick fix’ for our problems. In our therapeutic society we look inward for ‘positive thinking’ to set us on the right track.
What we find in Scripture is raw honesty about what it means to be human, alongside a story of a God who invites us to cast our cares upon Him, and to cry out to Him, to petition and plead, even to shake our fist. The language of prayer in the psalms is raw and honest.
Today, as we unpack the story of 1 & 2 Samuel, we meet David, who composed so much of the psalms. A king, a warrior, a poet, and a musician. He was beautiful and broken, and deeply honest before God.
We are currently reading through 1 and 2 Samuel together and looking at various stories together on Sundays.
Last week we looked at the story of David battling Goliath.
This week we fast forward to the beginning of the second book of Samuel. Here we encounter David crying out to God as he and the people of Israel face their own suffering and loss.
As we read this story, it’s helpful for us to have some context on what has come before this moment.
In the second half of the book of 1 Samuel we see a power struggle between David and Saul.
Saul is filled with jealousy towards David because the people see David as a mighty warrior and natural leader. Saul compares himself negatively against David and raises his hand to kill David. A game of cat and mouse ensues. David is chased by Saul, through the wilderness – from caves to cities the story unfolds as Saul hunts David down.
There are a few moments were David even gets the upper hand on Saul and has the opportunity to take revenge, yet he spares Saul’s life.
To make things more complicated, David develops a deep friendship with Jonathan, David’s son. Jonathan helps David out, warning him of Saul’s attempts to have him killed.
The story of 1 Samuel tells this story of two kings – it tells the story of a power struggle between Saul and David. What we see throughout the story is the descent of Saul as he goes further away from God and takes matters into his own hands, and the corresponding ascent of David as he humbles himself and God raises him up.
In 2 Samuel chapter 1 we hear of Saul’s death in battle and the transition of power from Saul to David.
2 Samuel 1 picks up from the last chapter of 1 Samuel. In the last chapter of 1 Samuel, Saul’s story of being king closes, and in the opening chapter of 2 Samuel, David’s story of kingship is just beginning.
Today’s reading is a hinge moment in the whole story of 1 & 2 Samuel.
David has just won a battle against the Amalekites when a messenger comes to him with bad news. The man came with his clothes torn and dirt on his head, customary outward signs of grief. As David saw the man coming it would be the equivalent of that phone call in the middle of the night – this was not going to be good news.
The messenger reports that King Saul has been killed in battle during a fight against the Philistines, and so has his son Jonathan, David’s best friend.
And we hear when David receives this news – in verse 17 – that “David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and Jonathan his son.”
David cries out in lament.
David’s lament is poetic, full of metaphor and pictures.
It captures on one hand the grief of Israel as a whole – David mourns these mighty warriors of his people. He mourns their loss.
He says: “O daughters of Israel, weep for Saul, who clothed you in scarlet and finery…”
Even though Saul has been his enemy and chased him down time and time again, David is able to recognize his role as Israel’s king and the loss of the King in battle. David shows his respect and in doing so is presented as righteous and upright.
But more than this, David’s words also capture his personal pain and loss of his closest friend Jonathan.
David says: ‘I grieve for you, Jonathan my brother; you were very dear to me. Your love for me was wonderful, more wonderful than that of women.”
David has lost his best friend.
When David was in trouble, Jonathan was always there for him.
David’s poem captures his love and his loss.
David laments. To lament in biblical terms is to pour out our grief before God, to cry out, to express our loss and pain honestly.
We see David lament elsewhere in the songs he writes that we know as the Psalms.
In Psalm 13, David cries:
“How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
2 How long must I take counsel in my soul
and have sorrow in my heart all the day?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?”
In Psalm 22 David pours out his heart:
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?
2 O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer,
and by night, but I find no rest.
Lament is a common feature in the Psalms. In fact, about 40 percent of the Psalms are Psalms of Lament.
Lament is an important feature in the Bible.
This morning, I want us to see how David’s lament informs a Christian spirituality that goes beyond platitudes in the face of suffering. I also want us to see how David’s grief and tears points forward to the tears of Jesus and the humanity of Jesus as he suffers with us and for us.
As we read today’s story from Samuel, we encounter loss and the power of lament – the power of crying out honestly before God.
In David we see a particularly powerful ability to lament and to grieve.
David doesn’t hold back his pain from God, he lays it out there in his prayers and songs.
Soong-Chan Rah, who has written a book called “Prophetic Lament: A Call for Justice in Troubled Times” says:
“Lament is honesty before God and each other. If something has truly been declared dead, there is no use in sugarcoating that reality. To hide from suffering and death would be an act of denial. If an individual would deny the reality of death during a funeral, friends would justifiably express concern over the mental health of that individual. In the same way, should we not be concerned over a church that lives in denial over the reality of death in our midst?”
We are invited to be honest and vulnerable before God. We are invited to lament, and in doing so we place ourselves in a space to receive healing and hope.
Because when we lament before God we acknowledge that we can’t get through our struggles on our own. To lament is to lean on our relationship with God. Even when we express anger and disappointment, we do so acknowledging God and our relationship with Him, rather than seeking to fix or problem solve, or bury our feelings, or to seek to sort out ourselves.
And so, we can ask ourselves the question:
What are we lamenting today?
There will be many experiences of loss amongst us, and the pain and grief we feel when, like David we lose someone or something we love.
For some of us, the loss we know intimately will be the loss of a loved friend, spouse, or family member. Like David, we have our ‘Jonathan’s’ – the people who we are deeply precious to us.
Other losses we will know is the loss of jobs, opportunities, and careers.
During our lives we might experience economic loss and hardship.
Collectively we experience losses too – globally our experience of covid-19 has been a loss of normality and a sense of stability.
There are all kinds of examples of loss, and many of our losses will be deeply personal and painful.
There are no clear explanations for many, perhaps most of our losses.
And we can easily find ourselves in a position like David’s…
When we see David’s journey, we see a man who knows how to lament.
And he isn’t the only one.
We see Jesus, the one who comes in the line of David, the one who is presented as the true King as a man who knew what it mean to Lament.
When Jesus rides into Jerusalem, shortly before his death, he weeps for the city and its people. (Luke 19) Jesus laments the unfaithfulness of the people and how they haven’t recognized God at work in Him.
Jesus laments over his people – he laments on behalf of the people he has come to save. We see this kind of corporate lament in David’s story too.
But not only does Jesus Lament like this. Like David, Jesus knows what it is like to lose a friend.
In John chapter 11 we hear the story of Lazarus, Jesus’ friend. He dies, and Jesus turns up to find the family grieving. And what does he do? He joins the lament. Jesus weeps.
Surely he knows that he can and will raise Lazarus from the dead. Jesus comes to the tomb with more than the intention of mourning. He comes bearing hope and to witness to the resurrection power of God. Yet first, he weeps.
The mourners present at the death of Lazarus say: “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?” We, too are quick to move to a solution, to view things pragmatically and push for a solution.
Culturally, we have a propensity towards utility.
When upset as a child, I remember once or twice being told something along the lines of “Stop crying, what use is that, it won’t make anything better.”
Makoto Fujimura in his book “Art + Faith: A Theology of Making” argues that Jesus’ tears show the gratuitous and extravagant love that Jesus shows. The tears weren’t necessary, but what is necessary isn’t the be all and end all or in fact, the best way to look at life.
Makoto says:
“The ‘wastefulness’ of Jesus’ tears leads to an understanding of God that moves beyond utility and function. From school shootings to tsunamis to the COVID-19 pandemic, the tragedies of our times call us to immediate action, but what God also requires of us is to lament deeply for the losses. Many times in my life, well-meaning people have tried to spiritualize a deep loss or tried to persuade me that God is teaching me lessons through loss and suffering…
“If we desire to be there with those whose incalculable losses outweigh any sentiments of hope, with those who are too ill to have a future, with those facing the darkness of depression, we need to know how that feels before we can endeavour to be present in suffering. We need to learn to lament and weep deeply for the reality all around us…”
Makoto argues that art helps us to enter this space, where we can ponder pain – he uses the painter Rothko, and the poet, T.S Eliot as examples.
We, also have an incredible resource in the Psalms.
The Psalms help us to learn how to pray when we find ourselves in despair, and how to pray with those who are facing darkness in their lives.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby speaks about what it means for us to include lament in our prayers, reflecting on his own experience of tragedy…
Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby on Lament. (the first three minutes CLICK HERE to watch)
“Weeping is one very powerful way of praying.”
That might just sum up what we see in today’s reading from Samuel.
David laments, Jesus laments, the Scriptures invite us to lament. To come before God openly and honestly with our hurts and losses.
The good news of the Gospel is that we won’t be stuck lamenting forever.
The promises of God in Scripture point to healing and new creation coming out of that which is hurt and broken.
Isaiah 61 says:
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn;
3 to grant to those who mourn in Zion—
to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;
that they may be called oaks of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.
At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus quotes from this passage, noting that the fulfilment of the promise of Isaiah is found in Him.
And so, we are invited to lament with faith, hope, and love. This doesn’t mean being cheerful, or denying our pain, or getting over it, to use a common and unhelpful phrase.
Rather, this means that we bow the knee to a King who weeps for us, who weeps with us, and in his death and resurrection makes a world without weeping possible.
Amen.