Here’s a
prayer of lament written for a Blue Christmas service, but appropriate on other
occasions as well. It was posted on the
Disruptive Grace blog.
Prayer of Lament
Weeping may go on all night,
but joy comes with the morning. Psalm 30:5
Holy and Merciful God,
Your scriptures tell us that weeping
may tarry for the night, but joy comes in the morning. Yet how long is
this night, O Lord? How long will this dark night of the soul be?
We have no explanation for what brings us here tonight. We can do nothing
else than endure in this deepest and most painful of mysteries. We
believe in you, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and resurrecter
of Jesus Christ. We also believe, with equal and perhaps even greater
conviction, that we have experienced some things that have been truly traumatic
and disturbing.
We are at a loss. We cannot
explain nor justify why you would allow these things to happen to us, and when
we hear these justifications they do not solve the mystery, or take away the
pain. They say that a true friend is one who is willing to tell you the
truth. Our truth is a question, God, to which we do not know the
answer. Our question is this: why God? Why?
Why would you allow such a thing to
happen?
And why would you allow us to be
wounded?
Like Job, we can find no fault in
ourselves for this suffering, though many voices inside and outside want to
blame us. Like Israel, we cannot simply put our tragedy behind us, but we
have to tell the story of when it happened, where it happened, how it
happened. Like you … You know this darkness, Lord, for you allowed it to
have its way with you on the cross. You prayed in the Garden of
Gethsemane that it might not be so. And yet you faced it, for our sake.
You not only died, but descended into hell.
Lord Christ, you know our suffering
deeper than we know it. You rose from the dead, but you still carried
your wounds. You asked Thomas to come and touch them, so that he might
believe. Can you teach us how to bear our wounds to you? We do not
want our pain to close us off from you or from others any longer.
Your presence is the only thing that
sustains us, and so allow us to be present to you in our pain. Your
strength was shown in weakness, and so we come to you in our weakness.
And so our weeping tarries for this night, but may joy come in the
morning. Death and destruction come for us all, we cannot deny them or
the wounds they have left. But we shall not let them have the last word,
because you did not let them have the last word.
Our
Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy
will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily
bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us
not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.
~
posted on the Disruptive Grace blog.
http://disruptivegrace.blogspot.ca/2010/12/prayer-of-lament.html
