I intellectually understand the correlation of Jesus’ “I am” statements to God’s “I am” statement. I like the certainty about it; that there is no question about who Jesus said he was. Hey, I even believe it! However, I have questions. I will confess to you that I sometimes wonder where God is and what God is up to. Maybe this places me squarely in the Sanhedrin camp: How do we really know that God is present and active in this one called “Jesus”? Maybe it’s jealousy of the certainty with which Jesus has in his faith. If I was part of the Sanhedrin and dedicated my life to the study, teaching and transmission of religion and religious order, then maybe I, too, would be upset. Enter the idea of lament.
Somewhere in our contemporary Christian culture we have grown fearful of the question. Questions of life and faith: Where is God? What is God up to? Those who are “in” often ridicule those from the outside asking these most vital and pressing questions; when maybe we ourselves have asked or are asking the same question. This act of questioning (and complaining) is called “lament.” Lament (“to cry out”) is simply asking the deeper questions of life and being okay with the answer or non-answer. Jesus is certain to the Sanhedrin, but he himself laments from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Just because we had certainty in one moment in our life doesn’t mean that we will always feel it, sense it or even believe it. In this season of Lent, cry out to God, ask the deeper questions of life and faith. Fear not the questions, expect the possibility of an answer.
