A Biblical Concept of God Gives Rise to Lament Not Apathy
In the atmosphere of contemporary Western Christianity, when someone voices a lament with the intensity frequently found in the Psalms, it is not uncommon for them to be looked at aghast or derided for their deficient faith and concept of God, which has produced such a so-called absence of trust. “If you really knew who God was,” they might say (or one might tell themselves), “you wouldn’t feel this way.” Yet when we look to the Psalms themselves, it is indeed the biblical and thoroughly Hebrew concept of God which provides fertile ground for the most poignant and unsettling of complaints. That our concept of God results in a lament-less spirituality, while the Hebrew faith invariably gives rise to lament, should indict us of our own deficient concept of God.
Allow me to illustrate.
Verses 1-13 of Psalm 10 voices a gut-wrenching cry to God, including the charges that
- God is standing far off (v. 1)
- He is hiding (v. 1)
- He is not lifting a finger to help us (v. 12)
- He is forgetting the afflicted (v. 12)
These near blasphemous claims, to a Western Christian, would obviously arise from a lack of understanding concerning God’s sovereignty (he is in total control), omnipresence (he can’t technically be “far off”), and omniscience (he can’t forget). Yet, these complaints do arise from a concept of God, albeit, a somewhat different one. Verses 14-18 give the justification, the rationale so-to-speak, for verses 1-13.
- He sees, specifically trouble and grief (v. 14) – a corollary would be that he identifies such as trouble and grief, not as a “blessing in disguise”
- The purpose of his “seeing” is not an abstract omniscience, but “so that you might take it into your hands” – i.e., act on behalf of the afflicted
- He is the helper of orphans – he helps the helpless (v. 14)
- He is King (v. 16)
- He he hears the desires of the afflicted (v. 17)
- God hears in order “to vindicate the orphan and the oppressed” – he is a God of justice who vindicates the downtrodden (v. 18)
Interestingly, the notion that “God is King” (v. 16), which is essentially what the concept of “sovereignty” means (i.e., God is the “sovereign,” the king), does not produce an apathetic acquiescence to divine pre-determination as it so frequently does in Western Christianity. Rather, it undergirds a cry for God to change what he is doing–don’t sit there continuing to do nothing – get up, lift your hand to help us! The Western deterministic concept of God (God determines how every event unfolds) leads us not to lament in the face of suffering, but to “trust” God in all things, that is, accept everything that happens, good or bad, as a blessing from God. After all, since he is all-knowing, he knows better than our limited understanding. Yet the Hebrew concept of sovereignty (God is King), or divine omniscience (he sees and hears all things), does not produce an acceptance of everything that happens (including evil), but rather, a resistance of all we know to contradict God’s revealed nature. God is the helper of orphans, therefore I cannot reconcile myself with any event, circumstance or person that promotes evil, hatred and violence towards people God loves. While faith can stabilize us in perseverance towards God’s yet unfinished future, true biblical faith refuses to ignore the open wound of humanity in the name of any theological construct, but rather suffers under it. In anticipation of God’s faithfulness to his Word and revealed character, faith and hope rejects any conciliation with a world marred by sin and death. In such we lament – with a cry both loud and strong, bearing an inexplicable mourning as we await, with all the saints and the entire creation, the future of God’s faithfulness.
While the Psalms abound with such examples, one further illustration could be taken from Psalm 74. Here the lament includes:
- God has rejected us (v. 1)
- His anger smokes against us (v. 1)
- God has not remembered us (v. 2)
- Our land has become a perpetual ruin (v. 3)
- Our adversaries have roared in our midst (v. 4)
- God is holding back his hand (v. 11)
- God is keeping his hand in his bosom (v. 12)
In verses 12-17, the mood seems to completely change, recounting the history of God’s mighty acts:
- God is King (i.e., “sovereign”) (v. 12)
- He works salvation and deliverance for his people (v. 12)
- He divided the Red Sea to save his people (v. 13)
- He destroyed the enemies of his people (v. 14)
- He is the mighty creator (vv. 16-17)
This kind of belief in God – a confession of God’s mighty deeds – the Hebrew concept of God – does not reduce the lament. It does not invalidate the previous expression of sorrow. Neither does it produce a response of apathy like “well now this is true, we have nothing to worry about” (and nothing to care about either). Rather, verses 18 and following of the Psalm go back into lament, pleading with God to act and not forget those who are oppressed as targets of violence. In all, this pattern we see in the Psalms should tweak the way we neatly package God in theological terms bearing the prefix “omni” or any other prefix for that matter. The God of the Bible is the God Who Acts, specifically on behalf of his people. He is the God of Justice. When these dear beliefs are contradicted, we do not sink into the swamp of apathetic malaise which we can call “trust” if we are so inclined. Rather, we allow a cry to well up from the depths – a shattering protest and earnest appeal, mourning the absence of this God of Justice. All is not well, all is not okay, and in such we feel, and feel deeply. This pain of godforsakenness is not a wonderful place to be. However, I would much rather be there, than in the catatonia of a faith that shuts its eyes to trouble and misery and closes its ears to the cries of the afflicted, rattling off some theological platitude in the stead of sorrow. For in the agonizing depths of godforsakenness, the crucified Jesus is always present – suffering with us – our friend and companion in grief.
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Comment from samuelclough
Time: January 27, 2010, 10:23 am
Amen! The simple misunderstanding of sovereignty is at the root of more issues in Western Christianity than most believers can imagine. We have replaced the simplicity of the Hebraic faith with something so ethereal and complex that it is difficult to relate to God as a person.