The sweetness of our saddest songs

 

Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. Psalm 42:5-6A ESV

            It fast becoming cliché, rightly and well, to say that the Church has neglected the practice of lament particularly in her hymnody. No one likes to taste the bitter moments of life, but what is bitter to the tongue maybe found sweet in the stomach. Our tears may not be the favorite meal, but they do provide for us something that cannot be got in any other source of sustenance.

            The psalmist has found one of the good things in the bitter moments. For even as he is caught in the throws of inner confusions, and locked in battle against despair, and being tossed around in the waves of it all he is freed from the tyrannies of sensation.  He may not feel the nearness of God, nor even evidence it in his life, but he recognizes the truth of God even still. His hope is objective, not subjective. He will come through this, and he has earned that hard-won hope by contending for it in the pain. That is to say he has tasted, and despite the bitterness he has found the goodness of God even still is sweet. How much sweeter will this goodness be when the bitterness is removed?

            There is also a great relief in the honesty of lament that makes the cause of it easier to bear. It is unnatural for us in this fallen world to have no troubles, indeed if there were no troubles how could there be an overcoming? Or how can we be comforted if never we have mourned? There is no rest except one has been wearied. Lamentation acknowledges the sorrows, and the hardship of the here and now to contrast them with a great glorious relief to come soon. They help us as creatures of a moment to endure in the moment till that moment has passed.

            So, then we do well to sing our bitter songs, winning through to hard-won praise as we struggle to find God when He seems hard to find. We do well to honestly exercise our faith in the most difficult times of life. We do well to point to a God who is great enough to keep us in the darkest nights, in the worst storms, when we live on our tears, when He seems far off. We do well to sing our songs of lament while we are here, for the day is coming when we shall know these songs no more.

Prayer

            Father may we who know You not fear the darkness of the night, or the turmoil of the storms of life. Let them be a time of growth in strength of faith and of trust in You. May we come to know You better in our struggles. Free us from the tyranny of sensation, and make us to have that objective hope rested in the objective truth of Your revelation. So, let us speak, and sing the fullness of the truth, that all the truth may be known by all the world. In the name of the Man of all sorrows we pray. Amen.

Songs

The silence of God

Weary of Earth, myself, and sin

Oft in sorrow

Satisfied in You

My help, my God (Psalm 42)

From depth of woe (Psalm 130)

O darkest night

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