Laments

NEWS FLASH: Lazarus still died.

Yea, Jesus raised him from the dead. But Lazarus still died. And he died later on down the road, too.

The bible ain't all rainbows and roses and blind following. People have beefs with God and they take them up with him. Yea, there are a dozen psalms that are rather emo, Psalm 88 definetly being one of them. But there's also an entire book devoted to these. Ever hear of Lamentations? Yea. That book. It's an entire book of laments. "He has made my skin and my flesh grow old and has broken my bones." That was verse 4. Multiply that by about 66 and you've got chapter 3 of Lamentations--and there are 5 of them.

Some may view laments and cries as faithless whinings. I beg to differ. Being willing to completely lay it out for God, blow by blow--this is everything that I can't stand, about me, about life, about you, about your plans, this path you've laid for me, takes an immense amount of faith. Let me tell you, crying out even just a third of the verses of Psalm 88 into a microphone at church on Sunday had me trembling--these are hard, dark, rugged, anguished verses, and they are in the bible. They are in the Bible. And here I am, proclaiming it. Not the way you'd expect someone to proclaim the Word of God:
"You have put me in the lowest pit,
in the darkest depths.

Your wrath lies heavily upon me;
you have overwhelmed me with all your waves.
Selah

You have taken from me my closest friends
and have made me repulsive to them.
I am confined and cannot escape;
my eyes are dim with grief." (Ps 88:6-9)

But yet, there I was, my voice alone in a room of 50 people, putting forth those words.
And these are valid words. These are valid words to express. And God knows them, and knows me.
It takes faith to walk to the throne of God and say, This is not fair! I am hurt by this! And I don't want to take it anymore! It's a level of faith to which I have been challenged.


Something I've been returning to is an image from Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ. I saw it in high school, but a few weeks ago, they played a clip of it at IV. There was this one scene when Jesus (or at least, the actor playing Jesus) gets flung onto the cross on the ground. The camera is just above the ground, pointed along the crossbeam. Jesus, completely bloodied, lands on the cross and his head rolls to the side and looks towards the camera. And in that moment, I remember: this is Divinty. This beaten, brusied, bloodied, weakened, exhausted man getting manhandled and flung onto a cross for which he was not meant is God. This was no mere man, being wrongfully accused. This was God.

He knows this pain. Whatever pain it is, he knows it. He knows the hopelessness, the wieght of the darkness. He knows it, because he experienced it. That gut-turning ache inside when everything falls? He knows it. And he died to save you from it, so that death may be conquered and you shall live--despite everything in your body that feels otherwise.

On that day long ago, on that hill, God twisted the "rules." He said, This, what you've done, deserves death. But it will be _my_ death.