Making Room for Lament in the Worship Life in the Church
How do you carry on after a traumatic experience? How do we process pain, grief, and suffering? How do we shoulder the burdens that God places on our backs? What does God think of our grief? What does He think of grief, period? We know that God Himself grieved aloudin the Garden of Gethsemane at the start of his agonizing passion, and upon the cross when He cried out to His Father, Why have you forsaken me? This stunning lament from Our Lord and Savior is echoed in the Scriptures: we see similar lamentations in the Psalms and in the Book of Ruth. We see it in Job. We see it even in traditional forms of worship. Our pain is real and meaningful. If we cannot bring it to God, what are supposed to do with it? Buried within us, not allowed expression, it threatens to fester and consume us. God does not want us to hide our suffering from Himbut rather, as the Psalms showHe wants us to bring it to Him. He knows suffering. He cares about ours.
Yet in the church today we find little room for lament. Instead of acknowledging our
" In fact, he and others instead see the gospel as a condemnation of the Jews who chose insurrection. Mark saw the choice between Barabbas and Jesus, as it was told and not necessarily as it happened, as one that symbolized the dramatic fate awaiting Jerusalem. In Greek, the technical term for such a rebel bandit is lestes, and that is exactly what Barabbas is called. He was a bandit, a
Suffering is part of life. People feel joy and they feel pain. Christianity and Buddhism share many similarities when it comes to suffering. Christianity provides the story of Job and his suffering at the hands of Satan. Buddhism offers Siddhartha and his journey into enlightenment. While Christianity and Buddhism differ in how they respond to suffering, both are aware suffering is inevitable. The case study of George and his diagnosis
counsel suffering people? One of the most important ways to counsel suffering people is by letting them tell their story. Sharing suffering and communicating the details of the burden with others can be immensely therapeutic. If there appears to be the danger of the client wallowing in his or her own suffering, I would offer up certain biblical passages to help shed light on the situation and to prevent the
existence of human suffering poses a unique theological problem. If God is omniscient, omnipotent, and all-loving, then why does suffering exist? Certainly this difficulty is confronted in scripture itself: perhaps the most memorable treatment of the problem of suffering comes in the Old Testament story of Job. Mainstream Christianity continues to have a variety of ways of approaching this theological question, although historically Christians had a much broader spectrum
Suffering Tim Murphy Theology MA2000D The existence of human suffering poses a unique theological problem. If God is omniscient, omnipotent, and all-loving, then why does suffering exist? Indeed, this difficulty is confronted in scripture itself: perhaps the most important look into the problem of suffering comes in the Old Testament story of Job. Mainstream Christianity continues to have a variety of ways of approaching this theological question, although historically Christians had a much broader
Theology Definition In How to Think Theologically, Howard Stone and James Duke argue that theology works with a distinct template and epistemology or theory of knowledge, as do history, sociology and physics. Each theologian will have a distinctive template, but they all rely on Scripture, tradition, reason and experience to a greater of lesser extent (Stone and Duke 43). Martin Luther stated that his theology was based on Scripture and faith
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