It’s not a common practice for me to do this but this past Sunday, Cory shared an extensive quote from Nicholas Wolterstorff’s book, “Lament for a Son,” and I’d like to share it in its entirety here (hoping I’m not violating any copyright laws in the process! 😬). Please take a few minutes to read this slowly and reflectively:

“How is faith to endure, O God, when you allow all this scraping and tearing on us? You have allowed rivers of blood to flow, mountains of suffering to pile up, sobs to become humanity’s song—all without lifting a finger that we could see. You have allowed bonds of love beyond number to be painfully snapped. If you have not abandoned us, explain yourself.

We strain to hear. But instead of hearing an answer we catch sight of God himself scraped and torn. Through our tears we see the tears of God.

A new and more disturbing question now arises: Why do you permit yourself to suffer, O God? If the death of the devout costs you dear (Psalm 116:51), why do you permit it? Why do you not grasp joy?

For a long time I knew that God is not the impassive, unresponsive, unchanging being portrayed by the classical theologians. I knew of the pathos of God, I knew of God’s response of delight and of his response of displeasure. But strangely, his suffering, I never saw before.

God is not only God of the sufferers but the God who suffers. The pain and fallenness of humanity have entered his own heart. Through the prism of my tears I have seen a suffering God.

It is said of God that no one can behold his face and live. I always thought that meant that no one could see his splendor and live. A friend said perhaps it meant that no one could see his sorrow and live. Or perhaps his sorrow is splendor.

 And great mystery: to redeem our brokenness and lovelessness, the God who suffers with us did not strike some mighty blow of power but sent his beloved son to suffer like us, through his suffering to redeem us from suffering and evil.

Instead of explaining our suffering, God shares it.

But I never saw it. Though I confessed that the man of sorrows was God himself, I never saw the God of sorrows. Though I confessed that the man bleeding on the cross was the redeeming God, I never saw God himself on the cross, blood from sword and thorn dripping healing into the world’s wounds.

What does this mean for life, that God suffers? I’m only beginning to learn. When we think of God the Creator, then we naturally see the rich and powerful of the earth as his closest image. But when we hold steady before us the sight of God the Redeemer redeeming from sin and suffering by suffering, then perhaps we must look elsewhere for earth’s closest icon. Where? Perhaps to the face of that woman with the soup tin in hand and bloated child at side. Perhaps this is why Jesus that inasmuch as we show love to such a one, we show love to him.

God is love, that is why He suffers. To love our suffering sinful world is to suffer. God so suffered for the world that he gave up his only Son to suffering. The one who does not see God’s suffering does not see his love. God is suffering love.

So suffering is down at the centre of things, deep down where the meaning is. Suffering is the meaning of our world. For Love is the meaning. And Love suffers. The tears of God are the meaning of history.

But mystery remains. Why isn’t Love-without-suffering the meaning of things? Why is suffering-Love the meaning? Why does God endure his suffering? Why does he not at once relieve his agony by relieving ours?”

Lots to be said here. I love how, at the outset, Wolterstorff cries out, “How is faith to endure, O God, when you allow all this scraping and tearing on us?” Ugh. There’s no sugar-coating here. No cliché about “everything happens for a reason.” Just raw, unadulterated lament. As Cory noted on Sunday, Lament is an important and necessary part of the suffering-to-healing process but yet is too often diminished or downplayed in our Shiny Happy People Christian culture. 

I’d love for us to embrace lament more intentionally as a community. The reason being that as you continue to read Wolterstorff’s lament poured out, you discover that the lament itself leads to the stark realization that although God does not explain our suffering, he profoundly shares the experience with us. As I noted in last week’s post, the cross isn’t just where God saves us; it’s where he shows us who he is. Suffering love. Bleeding compassion. The God of sorrows. The Redeemer who enters our pain and bears it with us and for us.

This is what makes lament such a powerful tool in our healing. Somehow, God invites our pouring out of our grief and anger and our despair and in doing so, it leads us to a heart-realization that this God not only hears our lament, but laments with us. Himself having experienced suffering and despair. And I don’t know how but this mysteriously leads us into the assurance of his presence with us, which will lead, ultimately to our healing and restoration. 

There’s a line in the song Lament by Seacoast that echoes this:

“You meet me in my suffering,
You know the ache inside,
You don’t despise my questions—
You just stay here by my side.”

That’s the kind of God we worship, revealed in the person of Jesus. Not distant. Not indifferent. But wounded. And present. With us. And, somehow, we discover this truth through our own crying out. So don’t shirk lament. Don’t resist it. Embrace it. For lament is what leads us to the God who suffers with us.  

I invite you, at some point in the next few days of this remaining week, to take some serious time to reflect on both this quote from Wolterstorff and also this hauntingly beautiful song “Lament.” 

See you Sunday!

Steve