I realize that not long ago, I wrote a piece on worship for "real people," but hear me out:
In worship, we NEED to have time for lament. If we refuse to grieve and mourn, we refuse to meet pepole where they are truly at. We refuse to enter into life with those who are in pain and with those who cannot help but mourn.
We don't like looking at our own pain. For most of us, lamenting seems like it's simply opening a wound that we had hurredly shut so that we could heal faster and "get over it." But there is beauty found in that pain. Christ is found in that pain. As Nicholas Wolterstorff says, "God is not simply the God of the sufferers, he is the God who suffers." To love is to suffer; those who love much, suffer much. C.S. Lewis echos those sentiments in, The Four Loves when he says this:
To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.If we refuse to grieve, we are, in essence, refusing to love. The Christian is called to love everyone - even their enemies. We are to lament every death because we are to love every person. We are to mourn the loss of loved ones AND enemies; of heroes and terrorists. Why? Because we're not called to live comfortable lives. Mourning, grieving, lamenting - it's uncomfortable. If Christianity is practiced the way it is preached in the Gospel, it is uncomfortable.
It's easy to cheer when it seems as if the "good guys" have won. John Donne puts it this way:
No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as a manor of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Lament. Face your own lamentations. Find out where you still grieve and allow yourself to grieve. We are called to mourn with those who mourn, but we can only do so if we ourselves know what mourning truly is.
