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Archives: October 2010
Lamenting over worship...
By Mike Pilavachi
A few years ago Matt Redman and I went to see Graham Cray, who was then the principal of a vicar factory (aka theological college) in Cambridge, as well as being a theological genius.
It was one of our regular visits where we would just double-check our theology and make sure we weren’t inadvertently committing heresy. We chatted pleasantly until I asked him where he thought we were going wrong. I was prepared for many of the questions that could have been thrown my way, but what Graham asked was something that God had been stirring in his own heart:
‘Where is the place of lament in our worship songs?’
I wondered what he was talking about.
‘The songs of exile and brokenness?’ he continued. ‘By the rivers of Babylon we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion,’ Graham quoted.
Thankfully I kept my mouth shut just long enough to remember this was written in the Psalms long before Boney M turned it into a song. Still, ‘Poor Graham,’ I thought. ‘He just doesn’t get it. He’s spent too much time in Bible college and can’t see the theological wood for the trees.’ With my most patronising smile I reassured him, ‘We’re not in exile any more, Graham. When Jesus died on the cross He brought us home. We don’t need to lament, only praise.’
I sat back, waiting for him to thank me for my theological insight and then I saw the look on his face. ‘Who on earth told you that?’ he asked. ‘Is this world really home? Are we not strangers in a foreign land? Yes, Jesus broke the power of sin on the cross and restored our relationship with God. Yes, the kingdom has come now. But in another sense it is not yet in its fullness. The lion does not yet lie down with the lamb.
Surely there’s still a place for lament over our sin, and just because we’ve become Christians doesn’t mean we’re immune to pain in our own lives. Quite aside from us, what about the rest of the world and all the people in desperate pain and need because of war, diseases like AIDS and natural disasters? Isn’t there some room in our worship to cry out for those situations?’
In the days, weeks and months that I thought about this issue after speaking to Graham, I began to realise what we’ve so often missed. We’ve focused on the joyful bits of praise, on the happy songs that express delight at being in relationship with Jesus, exalting God for all He is and does. While this joyful praise is completely fitting and right, it only tells part of the story.
It is estimated that 70 per cent of the Psalms are actually songs of lament rather than rejoicing. Of course we should spend much of our worship in praise and thanksgiving because God is good all the time and He is above the circumstances; we adore Him even when life hurts. Yet the Psalms teach us we can express the hurts of life, cry out to God in intercession and still adore Him. Worship was never meant to be an escape from reality, but praising His name in the midst of real pain in a real world is real worship.
The balance between honesty and truth
Worship is a place where we can bring all our pain to God, but sometimes in our desire to hold on to the truth, we have sacrificed something of our honesty. We must of course be careful and not make the opposite error where we wallow in self-indulgent pity in the name of honesty. But we must look to strike a balance. The Psalms incorporate honesty about where the psalmist is, as well as the truth about who God is, and we must look to do the same in our worship.
I know that sometimes my worship feels the most meaningful when I bring my pain to Jesus. I pour out my heart, tell Him how much it hurts and then say in the midst of this pain, ‘I will praise You.’
Because in one sense it’s easy to worship God when life is going our way, when God feels close, when work and relationships are all ticking along nicely, the sun’s shining and the birds are singing. It can seem harder to worship when we’re in great physical pain, grieving the loss of a loved one, confused about which direction our life is headed, have just had our hopes and dreams crushed or just can’t seem to find God.
But that’s the place where we need to worship. When circumstances in our lives don’t seem to back it up, we need to know the truth in our hearts that God is faithful, good, loving, kind and worthy of all our praise. Because of Jesus’ death on the cross we no longer have to bring physical sacrifices to God when we worship, as He made the ultimate sacrifice, but there is still a place for sacrifice today and often for us it is here, worshipping through the tears.
We know that David and Job are the classic biblical illustrations of this. David was a ‘man after God’s heart’ and we see something of what that heart is when we hear how David responded to tragedy.
God took David’s son’s life after his sinful relationship with Bathsheba and when David was told his child was dead ‘he went into the house of the Lord and worshipped’ (2 Samuel 12:20).
Job was considered ‘blameless and upright’ in the eyes of the Lord, but Satan tried to prove that Job only loved God because of what God had given him and not for who He is. This theory was blown out of the water when we see that in just one day Job lost his sons, daughters and livelihood and yet on hearing the news ‘he fell to the ground in worship’ (Job 1:20).
While these are two extreme examples of worshipping through the most painful of circumstances, they demonstrate hearts that were clearly in love with the Creator and not the things He created.
David and Job held the Giver and not the gifts in the highest esteem and therefore even in these excruciating circumstances were able to praise God’s name and declare the truth that He is good. This is a great reminder to us that our praise does not depend on our circumstances or whether we feel like it. God is worthy yesterday, today and for ever, and absolutely nothing can change that.
If we look at Psalm 77 we see the writer was going through one of the tough times that we all experience:
‘“Will the Lord reject for ever? ... Has God forgotten to be merciful?” … I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago. I will meditate on all your works and consider all your mighty deeds’
(vv. 7, 9, 11–12).
I know that when things get hard in my life I find it easy to look at the circumstances and wonder if God has forgotten me and I start to question whether He really is involved in my life, but praising Him reminds me of His goodness.
As the psalmist encourages us here, calling to mind His faithful deeds of the past gives us hope for His faithfulness in the current trials we face. Thanksgiving fixes our eyes back on Him, brings to mind His nature and works, and keeps us from too much unhelpful navel-gazing.
We have to be careful, however, that worship doesn’t become a quick fix, the Christian equivalent of sinking a bottle of whiskey or taking a tablet. Our consumerist culture tells us that life revolves around our pleasure and it’s this attitude that has contributed to the way we often look at times of worship in music as something for us.
We mustn’t have a consumer attitude of, ‘What can I get out of the worship? What blesses me? What gives me a quick pick-me-up?’ We must remember this is about offering our hearts to God.
In recent years I’ve heard people saying, ‘I can’t wait for Sunday so that I can spend some time in worship. It’s been such a bad week and I need some relief.’ It’s great to long to praise God – although we don’t have to wait until we meet as a church to do it – but we mustn’t use it like a God-fix to see us through the week.
Christianity is not about escapism. Worship should sharpen our awareness of the things going on in our lives and in the world as we bring them before the One who has power over them, rather than give us an hour’s respite.
Israel, it seems, had no problem with bringing their cries against the evil and injustice happening to them and around them into their songs to God.
Psalm 55 tells us how David cried out to the Lord when a former friend had turned against him and was leading a conspiracy against him. He said,
‘Let death take my enemies by surprise, let them go down alive to the grave, for evil finds lodging among them … My companion attacks his friends … His speech is smooth as butter, yet war is in his heart; his words are more soothing than oil, yet they are drawn swords
(vv. 15, 20–21).
We’ve often thought that anger is a sin, and that’s true when we get angry about things we shouldn’t. Many times in the Bible God’s anger burns because His people are not doing as He has commanded them. We too should have a righteous anger about some of the terrible situations that are going on in the world right now. Worship and intercession often go hand in hand as we allow God to break our hearts with the things that break His and we in turn bring the cries back to His throne room. Or, as in this psalm, David is expressing his anger at the betrayal of his friend. He feels it so strongly he prays that his enemies would die, but he is quick to say, ‘Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you’ (v. 22).
Rather than keeping hold of his anger or laying into someone else, he chooses to let it out before God and then to trust that God is capable of bringing about the appropriate justice. We shouldn’t use times of worship to stir up anger, but rather to sit and pour it out to God before we turn again to face our troubled world.
Worship that acknowledges that we love God in a place and from a place of pain is a worship that will speak with integrity to a broken and hurting world.
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