A Sorrowful Journey
Notes
Transcript
Introduction - A hard step
Introduction - A hard step
This week is probably the most difficult point of our journey through the wilderness. We began by talking about how the Holy Spirit of God calls us to the desert that we might be transformed. We have spoken about how wilderness worship looks different from mountaintop worship - it might involve things like solitude, silence and fasting. But this week we come to the stark truth that wilderness worship might also be emotionally painful. We are in that place variously called in the Psalms the valley of the shadow of death (Psalm 23:4; 107:10) or the valley of weeping (Psalm 84:6 NLT)
The valley of tears is a hard place to be. It is not somewhere that we should dwell, though it is somewhere we must journey through. But it is also a place that we can become trapped in and find almost impossible to leave. Perhaps that is why in many cultures, including the Hebrew Old Testament, we find that there is a poetic form called the lament. Indeed, many of the oldest and most lasting poems in human history have been laments. It is a passionate expression of grief, often in music, poetry, or song form. The grief is most often born of regret, or mourning. It is strongly represented in Celtic cultures, for example the pibroch music of the Highland bagpipes and many Gaelic songs of lament. It provides an outlet for grief, feelings of abandonment or loss, which makes it more likely that people can move on in their grief. The whole notion of progress or process is neatly summed up in Psalm 39:12.
Hear my prayer, O Lord! Listen to my cries for help! Don’t ignore my tears. For I am your guest— a traveler passing through, as my ancestors were before me.
However, there is no getting away from the reality that grief is a desolate place! That is why the image of the desert is so appropriate.
The dangerous desert
The dangerous desert
Thing is, not many of us will not have experienced the desert. But in Bible times there was no such misapprehension. Not only were deserts lacking in food and water, but these were not the only dangers, as Tom Wright also explains:
“The wilderness became a haunt of wild animals, the desert offered criminals a place to hide and plot, and open spaces between towns and cities were lawless, dangerous places from which travellers would be eager to escape by scurrying into the next built up area.” Tom Wright, Revelation for Everyone, p. 158.
For all these reasons, the wilderness was feared. For people in Bible times it represented the unknown, danger, threat, failure and mortality.
Today we are not good at talking about or reflecting on these kinds of difficult issues. We all experience struggles, fears, doubts, disappointments, anger and hurt. All of us will at some point be faced with the mortality of ourselves and our loved ones. And yet so often we brush these thoughts under the carpet. British people will often do their best to keep a “stiff upper lip”, to “keep calm and carry on”. Even with God, we can come into church or to times of prayer, and try to pretend that everything is okay. Would God want to hear about our struggles? Can we be honest with him?
Joseph Scriven, who had many struggles in life, was prone to bouts of deep depression. Scriven drowned in 1886 aged 66. It isn't known if his death was an accident or a suicide, as he was in a serious depression at the time. This is what he wrote some years earlier after the death of his fiancee from pneumonia:
Have we trials and temptations,
is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged:
take it to the Lord in prayer.
Can we find a friend so faithful,
who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our every weakness:
take it to the Lord in prayer.
Would God want to hear about our struggles? Can we be honest with him? Yes. There is no problem greater than His power to handle nor too insignificant for His love to care. As Jesus said:
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Learning to Lament
Learning to Lament
Many wilderness experiences in the Old Testament teach us that God does hear. He does care. In Exodus 3, Moses is hiding in the desert in exile, when he hears God say:
The Lord said, ‘I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering.
Our God is not blind to our struggles or deaf to our cries. He does not consider it a lack of faith, an insult, or a sin, if we choose to be honest with him. We can tell him about our doubts, how we feel about the state of the world, or even share when we feel disappointed with him. In fact, he wants his people to cry out to him in honesty and desperation. The Psalms are full of honest, raw complaint, sorrow and protest. Bible characters - from Hagar to David, from Jesus to Paul, pray heartfelt prayers of distress. These prayers are called “lament”. Yet …
Lament is hard on so many levels
Lament is hard on so many levels
Externally, it strips away our masks.
Internally, it bares our souls.
It makes us recall painful memories.
It forces us to relive painful experiences.
It feels like knocking the scab off a healing wound.
Songwriter Michael Card describes the importance of the wilderness in teaching us to lament:
“You and I were created to wake up in a garden. Instead we open our eyes each morning to a fallen wilderness, a world where our omnipresent God seems disturbingly absent… God transforms us and leads us by His grace into a pathway back to His presence. This path is found in the language of lament. When we lack the language to articulate this forsaken, fallen struggle, when we long for the words to cry out our confusion and bewilderment, the Bible provides such a language for us… Lament is learned only in the wilderness.” Michael Card “Worship in the Wilderness” DTS Voice, https://voice.dts.edu/article/worship-in-the-wilderness-michael-card/
Jesus meets us ... and sends us
Jesus meets us ... and sends us
Lament will look different for each one of us. Some people will come and whisper a prayer. Others might shout at God. Some of us will sing a sad song, others might paint our pain on a canvas. Some of us will shake our fists, others will ask questions to try to understand.
We can see these different kinds of responses in our passages today. When Martha’s brother dies she goes to Jesus with a theological question. Jesus meets her in that, he listens, he responds with a deep truth that she can place her hope in.
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live,
Mary is completely different. She has a question, but she mostly weeps. And so Jesus is moved deeply in his spirit and He weeps with her. Even though Jesus must know what He is about to do, He is profoundly sorrowful for Lazarus, and He is not afraid to show it.
When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. ‘Where have you laid him?’ he asked. ‘Come and see, Lord,’ they replied. Jesus wept.
The story of Moses demonstrates another of God’s reactions to sorrowful circumstances. Moses isn’t mourning a death – his issue is the mistreatment of his people under the Egyptians. But he is also consumed with self-doubt at the mistake he has already made in trying to sort this situation out. God comes to Moses to tell that man, consumed by his own shortcomings, that He, the Lord, cares, He heals, and that He is calling Moses to do something about it.
Conclusion
Conclusion
So if you are like Martha, wilderness worship is a place for you to be honest with God. To tell Him how you feel, to ask Him questions, to call out “how long, O Lord?” All of these things are okay with Him, and He will meet you in your honesty.
Wilderness worship is also a place to weep, to just let it all out like Mary did. That is okay with God too. Jesus stands and weeps with you.
Yet, wilderness worship might just be a place where God shows you His heart for a situation your are facing, as He did with Moses. God may move you for an injustice or a need or a person. It may be that he impresses His sorrow at a situation or for something on your heart, and then He sends you to go and do something about it, in His power. Amen.