In an age of constant video streams, images, and graphic accounts of turmoil around the world and in our communities, we can become emotionally paralyzed. The trauma caused by sinful humanity is overwhelming, leaving us unequipped to handle the feelings that arise. Sometimes we shut off and numb ourselves to it all. The danger is that we disengage and no longer actively pursue change. Most of us don’t want to lose the ability to empathize. Yet, how do we remain sensitive to the gravity of sin without losing our minds?

That question has more than one answer, but the biblical authors set an example for us. They were well-acquainted with tragedy, and their response was to lament. Lament gives us space to process and express the pain sin causes. In the book of Lamentations, we hear the cry of distress. It comes from the pen of an ancient Jewish author who captured the immense pain of war and exile.[1]

How lonely sits the city
that once was full of people!
How like a widow she has become,
she that was great among the nations!
She that was a princess among the provinces
has become a vassal . . .

Judah has gone into exile with suffering
and hard servitude;
she lives now among the nations,
and finds no resting place;
her pursuers have all overtaken her
in the midst of her distress (Lam 1:1, 3)

My eyes are spent with weeping;
my stomach churns;
my bile is poured out on the ground
because of the destruction of my people,
because infants and babes faint
in the streets of the city.

They cry to their mothers,
“Where is bread and wine?”
as they faint like the wounded
in the streets of the city,
as their life is poured out
on their mothers’ bosom (Lam 2:11–12).

Yohanna Katanacho, a Palestinian theologian, knows tragedy and lament. He has seen the terrible violence both Israelis and Palestinians have inflicted on each other. In an interview with BMS World Mission he stated:[2]

“The Book of Lamentations talks about a situation very similar to what is happening in Gaza. I’m trying to seek God through my tears, seek my humanity through my tears as well as the tears of others. We as human beings are unique, we can cry, we can feel our pain but our humanity becomes even deeper and stronger when we start to feel the pain of other people around us . . . Many times when we start arguments of who’s right and who’s wrong, it becomes so difficult and we don’t get to solutions.  But perhaps instead of starting our interactions with arguments and reading different newspapers, perhaps we can just cry with people who are suffering and not just cry with our friends but also with our enemies.”

Lament, paradoxically, is a sign of hope, an indicator that the one crying out still believes Someone is listening. Where there is no hope, there is no wailing—only silent resignation.[3] Lament is a way to express all that we feel inside when tragedy consumes us—despair, fear, anger. But lament is not only the expression of pain; it’s also the demand for change. It is a protest against what is happening and an expectation that God can and must respond. Even in the face of death, lament pleads for the long-awaited resurrection.

Lament can be done individually or communally with others. In community, we hold each other’s pain. We are not alone; together we find strength. This might look like a candle light vigil. Or it might look like a literal protest, marching in the streets, making the world know and hear our suffering. Lament is not only for the ears of God, but for each other. We are meant to hear each other’s pain, to empathize, and to rebuild together.

Many of us in the West never learned how to lament. It is a long-lost practice. We did not learn the rituals of wailing, or tearing our clothes, or putting dust on our heads, or writing our anguish in poetry, or wearing black for a season. We are expected to put on a strong face, bottle our emotions, and return to the office, pretending that nothing has happened. But the power of lament is that it disrupts the routine. It says, “No, everything is not all right.” That honesty is a call for empathy and solidarity. And it’s a cry against the ravages of sin, saying “The world can be a better place. Let’s, you and I, work together to make it so.”

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[1] This anguish was compounded by the belief that God was punishing them for sin—a common belief in the ancient Near East to explain why bad things happen. It was a theological form of victim blaming. But not all the biblical authors believed defeat in war or other calamities were the result of God’s punishment. The authors of Ecclesiastes and Job both concluded that the cause of suffering is a mystery and that even good people can experience tragedy.

[2] “A Poem of Lament for Both Sides of Gaza,” BMS World Mission website, 17 July 2014, http://www.bmsworldmission.org/news-blogs/archive/a-poem-lament-both-sides-gaza. See also his poem in this article.

[3] Dr. Ellen F. Davis, Duke Divinity School lecture.