If you come to one of St Martin’s services during Lent, then you’ll notice that there’s a thread running through the liturgy and the music. It’s a thread of sorrow, regret and lament. The sorrow and regret is that we are sinners. The lament is that our sins are overwhelming, in their number and in the offence that they cause God. You might find it uncomfortable, or even depressing.
Not every church will offer you this. I have been part of a church where it seemed that the worship, at whatever time of year, only had a place for praise and thanksgiving. But as the theologian Walter Brueggemann has pointed out, where this is the case there is ‘a loss of genuine covenant interaction’. If the only voice we can employ is one of praise, then we are robbed of a central element of our humanity. And we can find ourselves engaging in a worship life of either pretence or denial. Lament is what happens when the promises of God collide with the reality of our lives, and we express that collision and call on God to harmonise the two.
Without lament, our relationship with God ends up as one of coercive obedience; and this is not what God is looking for. Rather God wants us to grow into people who can engage in honest conversation and real communion. And that means that God wants to hear from the depths of who we are, and God wants to able to respond to what we bring, and not simply be the initiator all the time. When we confess our sinfulness, and express regret for our shortcomings, then we find that God is eager to respond with forgiveness and restoration.
So make the most of Lent, and the opportunity to lament. God is ready and waiting to respond. That’s the promise of Holy Week and Easter that await us.
Revd Dr Alastair McKay
