It’s Okay to Lament During Advent
For most of my life as a follower of Jesus, the concept of lament was cloudy and the practice of it was foreign at best. Integrating my raw emotions into a life of prayer was, for the most part, absent. Granting the Lord access into the deepest recesses of my soul was something I was never really discipled into. Because of this, a depth of intimacy was missing in my relationship with my risen Lord. It’s Okay to Lament During Advent
In recent years, however, God—in His sovereign yet mysterious wisdom—has allowed several trials to enter my journey with Him. During the pandemic, my family endured the dreaded “three D’s” of death, divorce, and diagnosis. Between this and other significant life transitions, the Lord was moving me into a deeper realm of prayer through lament.
Yet it was our youngest daughter’s heart-rending diagnosis of a rare genetic and life-shortening disease just over a year ago that brought me to a place of grief and desperation I had never known before. Learning to lament was what anchored my shattered soul to my Sovereign Lord.
What is Lament?
In his masterful book, Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy, Pastor Mark Vroegop defines lament as the “honest cry of a hurting heart wrestling with the paradox of pain and the promise of God’s goodness.”[1] He goes on to succinctly say that “lament is a prayer in pain that leads to trust.”[2] In other words, biblical and redemptive lament is the prayer that takes our pain vertically to our compassionate Heavenly Father with uninhibited honesty. But it also is a prayer that paves a path forward towards the fulfillment of God’s promises. Therefore, lament expresses humble and bold trust that despite dwelling in deep darkness, we will someday soon see a great and bright light (Isaiah 9:2).
Biblical and redemptive lament is the prayer that takes our pain vertically to our compassionate Heavenly Father with uninhibited honesty. But it also is a prayer that paves a path forward towards the fulfillment of God’s promises.
Beloved brother or sister, it’s okay to lament during Advent! And I urge you to begin with reading aloud psalms of lament such as Psalms 3, 5, 13, 25, 69, and 77. Allow these Spirit-inspired words to shape your own prayers of lament. I trust that as you do you will, like me, encounter the faithful face of Christ, who has promised to come again and make all things new.
Lament expresses humble and bold trust that despite dwelling in deep darkness, we will someday soon see a great and bright light.
I want to share a prayer of lament I wrote last year on Christmas, in the hope that it helps you go to God in whatever pain you might be carrying this Advent season.
An Advent Lament
Why, O Lord, is this Christmas so different?
Where there seems to be more sorrow than joy.
More darkness than light.
Less merry and more misery.
Less fellowship and more fighting.
Less celebrating and more crying.
Less feasting and more fasting.
Less gratitude and more grief.
Less awe and more anxiety.
Less singing and more sadness.
Less humility and more heartache.
O Lord, how long will these things be?
Yet God, the Lord, is no less worthy to be praised.
He is no less glorious.
No less holy.
No less awesome.
No less wondrous.
No less loving.
No less light.
No less kind.
No less forgiving.
No less merciful.
No less redeeming.
No less our Immanuel.
Therefore, may praise arise from my weary soul,
For God the Lord is good and His steadfast love endures forever.
For in God’s glorious kingdom less is often more, and what seems less this Christmas is eternal and what seems more is temporal.
His love is more than my languishing.
His mercy is more than my misery.
His grace is more than my grief.
His steadfastness is more than my sadness.
His disposition is more than my depression.
His compassion is more than my crying.
His wonder is more than my worry.
More than ever this Christmas, my soul longs for Christ’s second Advent.
So I dare to hope again.
I fight for joy.
In rebellion against the brokenness of this world and that which is still broken in me…
I declare, rejoice, REJOICE, Immanuel has come, Immanuel lives in me, and Immanuel shall come again!
Copyright © 2024 Justin Jeppesen. All rights reserved.
[1] Vroegop, Mark. Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy: discovering the grace of lament. Crossway. Wheaton, IL. 2019. P. 26.
[2] Ibid.
