Neither Disembodied nor Triumphalist: The Voice of Christian Hope

"Lament is the language that a heart formed by hope has learned to speak."

Silence. It can be powerful and unnerving. When you are anxiously awaiting a response from a doctor about test results, and you don’t hear back for days—the silence is unsettling. When you get up the courage to finally ask someone out or address something within your family that needs to be discussed, and there is more than a pregnant pause after you’ve spoken—the silence can feel formidable. The silent pause that often happens right before hearing bad news can be anxiety-inducing and painful, even if it’s short. However, if the words that break through the silence communicate that the news is bad, the relationship broken, or the diagnosis terminal, it can often feel like the only proper response is to return to silence. For when we experience these moments or seasons of pain and loss, words often feel empty, like a balm that can’t heal the relational, communal, personal, spiritual, or physical wounds we’ve suffered. 

Words, like silence, wield a particular kind of power, but our words cannot undo irreparable losses or reverse catastrophic sequences of events. This is why, when there is a national tragedy, we often have moments of silence. In the face of radical pain and loss, the very words that often carry the news of these moments are inadequate to bear the weight of our pain. As John Swinton writes, “When we encounter suffering, we are silenced…there is nothing to say, only overwhelming pain, loss, and disorientation to be felt. In an instant, we discover that the world is not the way we thought it was. All of the old road maps that guided our lives and the ways in which we understood the world now make no sense” (Swinton, Raging with Compassion, 97). Suffering disrupts the stories we thought we were living, and moments of silence bear witness to the real disorientation, despair, and disillusionment of pain and grief. Bearing witness to the realities of suffering is important. Sitting with others in silence—whether at a national sporting event or in a small, cramped living room—is a meaningful way to tell the truth of what has just occurred and how deep and devastating the loss, diagnoses, or pain really is. 

Yet, at some point, we need words again. We need a way to make meaning of what has occurred, to name and identify exactly what has been lost, and to narrate this event within the context of our lives. Pastors, psychologists, and medical anthropologists have all shown that one of the most important aspects of processing grief and pain is moving from silence to sound—from wordless anguish to articulated cries. Naming our pain, they say, helps heal our pain. 

However, within Christian communities, there is often a push to narrate—to give voice to—painful events through the lens of victory or Pollyanna-like optimism. Common clichés such as everything happens for a reason, God gives His hardest battles to His strongest soldiers, or He’s making beauty from ashes often come from a place of deep faith and trust in God’s goodness and provision. But as narratives to give voice to the pain we experience, they fall terrifyingly short not just psychologically but also biblically. 

Scripture again and again points to God’s fidelity and faithfulness. He is trustworthy; as Romans declares, God is “work[ing] all things together for the good of those who love him who are called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28). At the same time, it also reveals that we might not always know how God is working out all things to His good ends. We might live the rest of our lives with open questions as to how God’s providence is at work in the particular context of our lives. To declare the words of Romans 8, then, is not always about connecting the dots from a tragic event to some tangible good in one’s current life. Rather, to say the words of Romans 8 is to proclaim words of hope rooted in trust. In God’s good and gracious providence, He will make "everything sad become untrue." However, we may not know until the life to come why God allowed certain things in our lives to happen. We may live with sorrow-filled songs and open questions the rest of our lives. These sorrow-filled songs and open questions are faithful ways to give voice to our pain and narrate the stories of our lives. 

In Scripture, we are given sorrow-filled songs to sing in the Psalms of lament. The Psalms of lament do not shy away from pain, anguish, or sorrow. They voice them to God, giving words to the realities of our lives—both individual and communal. The Psalms of lament stand in the desolation of disappointment and despair and cry out to God in the midst of these realities. Moreover, the laments in Scripture almost always end with a declaration of hope rooted in trust that the God who makes and keeps his promises will do so once again. The hope in the Psalms is not blind optimism, and it is not a victorious declaration of how pain has been magically transformed into a better or more blessed life. Hope in the Psalms is a real, honest declaration, amid the awful realities of life, that we cannot manufacture or optimize our way out of our pain. Rather, in our pain we turn to the only one who can restore us and who has promised us a day when pain, death, and sorrow will be no more. 

The Psalms of lament are a gift to us when we walk through seasons or lifetimes of suffering. We will need friends and communities willing to sit in silence with us, but when we move to articulate our pain, the Psalms of lament can give us the language we need to voice it and declare our trust in God’s promises. For God has promised that Christ, His Word, does have the power to raise the dead, put an end to evil, and make "everything sad come untrue." When our words fail, when we are stunned to silence, Scripture assures us that as we start to voice our pain to God, we are putting our hope in the one who is the living Word, made flesh for us and for our salvation. We cannot manufacture the restoration that Christ, who is the life-giving Word, brings, but we can get caught up in it. One of the ways to get caught up in it—especially when we are suffering—is to find our home in the Psalms of lament and let the words of the psalmist become ours.