Lament Psalms for Lent
True spirituality is being honest with God, even with raw pain and anger. Then, we will truly encounter God. To think that a Christian has to be happy all the time is a fake spirituality. Life is unpleasant sometimes, and when we think we have to paint a smile on our faces all the time, we only induce an unnecessary burden of false guilt.
To get to praise, we have to start with lament. The Book of Psalms begins mostly with lament and crescendos to praise towards the end. In fact, there are more lament than praise psalms: out of 150 psalms, 30 (20%) are about praising God, while 42 (almost 30%) express laments.
Lament psalms generally have the following elements in their structure:
- Complaints to God
- Call to God for help
- Contention of innocence or confession of sin
- Call for justice against enemies
- Confidence in God
- Celebration
Complaining (pouring out our despair) to God is a pathway to God, and in his presence, confidence (faith) is engendered. The following are lament psalms composed by first year Old Testament students, embodying the above structure and penned in the style of Hebrew poetic parallelism. There are laments about diseases, depression and discrimination. We offer them during this Lent period to give voice to various struggles and point the way ultimately to the cross of Christ.
Rev Dr Maggie Low
Lecturer in Old Testament
