This Should Not Be: Lent Daybook 35

Look: World’s Tallest Disaster (1972), Roger Brown - Source

Listen: Supposed to Be, Russ Mohr - Lyrics | Spotify | YouTube

Read*: Psalm 120-123; Psalm 124-127; Jeremiah 25:8-17; Romans 10:1-13; John 9:18-41

Excerpts:

“In my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me. Deliver me, O Lord, from lying lips, from a deceitful tongue

… Too long have I had my dwelling among those who hate peace. I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war!

I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.

I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord!’ Our feet have been standing
within your gates, O Jerusalem!

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem! ‘May they be secure who love you! Peace be within your walls and security within your towers!’ For my brothers and companions' sake I will say, ‘Peace be within you!’ For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your good.

Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us, for we have had more than enough of contempt. Our soul has had more than enough of the scorn of those who are at ease, of the contempt of the proud.

If it had not been the Lord who was on our side— let Israel now say— if it had not been the Lord who was on our side when people rose up against us, then they would have swallowed us up alive, when their anger was kindled against us; then the flood would have swept us away, the torrent would have gone over us; then over us would have gone the raging waters.

Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”

*

“Thus the Lord, the God of Israel, said to me: 'Take from my hand this cup of the wine of wrath, and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it. They shall drink and stagger and be crazed because of the sword that I am sending among them.’

So I took the cup from the Lord's hand, and made all the nations to whom the Lord sent me drink it…”

*

“For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them. But the righteousness based on faith says, ‘Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ (that is, to bring Christ down) or ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’ (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? ‘The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart’ that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

*

”Jesus heard that they [the Pharisees] had cast him [the blind man he’d healed on the Sabbath] out, and having found him he said, ‘Do you believe in the Son of Man?’ He answered, ‘And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?’ Jesus said to him, ‘You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.’ He said, ‘Lord, I believe,’ and he worshiped him. Jesus said, ‘For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.’ Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, ‘Are we also blind?’ Jesus said to them, ‘If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.”

-Psalm 120:1-2, 6-7 - 122:1-2 * Psalm 122:6-9 * Psalm 123:3 - 124:5, 8 * Psalm 125:4, 5 * Psalm 126:4 - 127:1 * Jeremiah 25:15-17 * Romans 10:5-9 * John 9:34-41 (ESV)

Pray: Prayer for honesty about my acceptance of grief

Knowing that God loves me unconditionally, I can afford to be honest about how I am. How has the last day been, and how do I feel now? I share my feelings openly with the Lord. (Sacred Space for Lent)

Do: Spend some time journaling in response to today’s meditation. 

Let this be a place you share your honest thoughts and feelings with God. Speak plainly and without qualification.

Lament in Week 5: Resolve to stay present with God and others to your lament to help articulate acceptance

Acceptance as a stage of grief: “Acceptance is not necessarily a happy or uplifting stage of grief. It doesn’t mean you’ve moved past the grief or loss. It does, however, mean that you’ve accepted it and have come to understand what it means in your life now.”

This stage is marked by a sense of owning your grief and an increased capacity to affirm meaning and welcome wisdom.

How does your body feel when you are in a stage of acceptance? Your mind? Emotions?

Affirming meaning and owning your grief as the language of lament: I felt intuitively that to disown my grief would be to live a lie. It would be to declare, implicitly, that Eric’s death was not an evil, or that my love of him was not a good. But his death was an evil, a great evil, and my love for him was a good, a great good. My grief spoke the truth. It was an existential shout of “No” to the evil of Eric’s death and an existential shout of “Yes” to the good of my love for him.

I would own my grief. When tears came, I would let them flow. When telling about significant events in my life, I would tell about my love for Eric, and about his death, and about my grief over his death. I would preserve the memories, and I would live with the disturbances and disruptions in my life that those memories created.”

“I shall continue to rail against Eric’s untimely death. This should not be.” (Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lament For A Son)

As you look back over the various expressions of lament you’ve recorded so far this Lent, what simple wisdom emerges from the suffering? This is different than “finding a silver lining”; this is panning the depths for gold. In the light of lament, what seems to be the most true about God, yourself, and others? Make a list and share it with your trusted friends or a spiritual director. 

If writing this reflection down provokes a sense of anxiety, don’t do it. Take a walk and share the list out loud with God or a friend. Make a piece of art or even a playlist of songs as a way to affirm meaning hidden in the suffering. 

Trust Jesus to be with you and with all the world as you retrieve the language of lament