Pancakes and Pandemics: What the L[am]ent?!

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

Jesus' dying words on the cross in Mark and Matthew (Mark, and Mark: extended cut) are perennially poignant on Good Friday. Perhaps, this year they are more important than they ever have been in our lifetime--for us as individuals living in a world in crisis, and as the church, reeling as the humans we are, while simultaneously struggling to both envision and enact a Christlike response to a literal pandemic.

When we read these dying words of Jesus as 21st century Christians, it is tempting to draw the conclusion that Jesus believed that he had been betrayed, even abandoned by his Father to die. This is an entirely valid interpretation, but I believe that we stop short of the heart of the matter by leaving it at that. These dying words of Jesus are not a random response of profound human anguish, but are a quotation of the opening of Psalm 22, one of many psalms of lament in the Psalter. Anecdotally (and I'm sure academically, somewhere), I've heard that witnesses' to Jesus' death would have heard him praying these words, and, being commonly devout, would have known what came next in the ancient prayer. The hearers would have understood the pattern of orientation, disorientation, and reorientation toward God inherent in (nearly) every lament. They would have known "but I am a worm, and not human; scorned by others, and despised by the people" (v. 6) and "yet it was you who took me from the womb; you kept me safe on my mother's breast" (v. 9) and even "to him indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, and I shall live for him" (v. 29). By losing the context, we lose the lament-dance. We lose the affirmation of the presence of God in Jesus', and indeed in our own suffering.

As the human race, imprinted with the image and fingerprints of our Creator, we find ourselves in a season where we ought to be lamenting. Thousands have died, millions are grieving, billions are living in fear and dread of what might happen and how the world will change as a result of Covid-19. As the church, the living Body of Christ who has tasted and seen and known the goodness of the Lord, we ought to be leading the way through lament. Lament, I would argue, is the vehicle by which we are granted assurance of God's presence in the midst of suffering. Lament affirms the full range of human experience. Humans negate human experience by offering platitudes or comparisons that provide little (if any) comfort, no validation, and cause the sufferer to recoil from connection, human or divine. Church, we need to do better, and the "better" that we can do is modelling vulnerability ourselves, and making space for people to be vulnerable before God with their pain, fears, and failures. God will draw near to these people, just as he draws near to us--that's his job, and he does it well, Amen?

Only God could take the pain and disorientation of Good Friday and have it lead to the glorious bliss of Easter morning. Let's bring all of our ugly and confusing feelings to God, press in, and see what he does within and around us.

Pancakes, Donkeys, and Penitence: What the Lent?!

Lent is kind of great--it starts with pancakes and ends with chocolate. Close to the end there's a bit with a donkey and some tropical foliage. It's rad. If I were Rodgers or Hammerstein, I'd probably rewrite My Favourite Things to include these things of Lent. I freaking loved this season as a kid--before things got serious.

And then somewhere, the pancakes and donkeys lose their lustre, and Lent becomes about physical self-denial than whimsy and indulgence. Life can't always be viewed through the rose-coloured glasses of childhood. Jesus was tempted and tortured. He did suffer, and die before Easter, at the very hands of those to whom he had come to save.

Normally, I'm one to press in to my pain. I might be a firm-ish believer in the old "no pain, no gain" adage. I often enjoy a good spiritual self-flagellation, when it brings me to an awareness of my own depravity, and God's unbelievable grace, mercy, and love.

But not this year. My life is too good this year. My circumstances are objectively better than they ever have been, and I don't want to interrupt my happy little bubble for a season of penitence. I feel emotionally, relationally, and spiritually fulfilled in ways that I never could have imagined from the depths of panic and depression which I know all too well. I still have a hard time believing that God can really be as good as I have seen him to be recently. In the back of my mind, I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. How long can things be good before they're ruined, either by a frail and fallen humanity, or a God who doesn't really care as much as we'd hoped?

Of course, the following passage comes to mind:

7 “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. 9 Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone? 10 Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake? 11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!" -Matt. 7:7-11

Recently, my posture has generally been one which is closed to God's intervention. I can't shake the idea that God's holding up another shoe--it's going to drop. I don't want to know about it, or think about it, or imagine what it could look like. Lent reminds us of a God who allows suffering--suffering of others, and of himself. I want to believe that I've had my life's allotment of suffering. I'd rather live my happily ever after, my way.

And yet, I've tasted and seen God's goodness. My faith first came alive out of a place of suffering, when I finally came to the end of my own resources, discovering that they weren't as infinite as I'd thought. I don't know the answers. He does. What looked the most awful in the Easter story only primed us for the best thing ever.

As unnatural as it feels, and as much as I don't want to, I'll keep pressing. The one who knows my fears knows what I need.