Lament is what happens when people ask, “Why?” and don’t get an answer.
The point of lament, woven thus into the fabric of the biblical tradition, is not just that it’s an outlet for our frustration, sorrow, loneliness and sheer inability to understand what is happening or why.
The mystery of the biblical story is that God also laments.
Some Christians are prone to think of God as above all that, knowing everything, in charge of everything, calm and unaffected by the troubles in his world. That’s not the picture we get in the Bible.
The ancient doctrine of the Trinity teaches us to recognize God in the tears of Jesus and the anguish of the Spirit.
It is no part of the Christian vocation, then, to try to explain what’s happening and why (in terms of God being a causal agent). In fact, it is part of the Christian vocation not to be able to explain—and to lament instead.
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