Nathan George | Lament, Light, Laughter

Sunday Evening, September 14, 2025
Given by Nathan George | Pastor of Worship
Christ Covenant Church

Lament, Light, Laughter
Sermon Text: Psalm 13

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Transcript

So, a few moments ago, you sang, "Full of kindness and compassion, slow to anger, vast in love, God is good to all creation. All his works his goodness prove." And then a moment ago you sang, “Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day. Earth’s joys grow dim; its glories pass away, change and decay, and all around I see. Oh, thou who changest not, abide with me.” 

So which is it? Which one are you going to choose? Psalm 13 is a favorite of mine. It's been a long-term meditation for me. My brother-in-law wrote a song using this psalm, and I liked it and arranged it just a little bit, and I've been singing it in concerts for the last 27 years. I've talked about this psalm. I've thought about this psalm. I've even preached on it some years ago, although I rewrote the sermon, because I didn't think it was so great. But it has been a personal lament for me. I've used this psalm. It's also helped me when I feel like I have a lack of light, a lack of understanding, a lack of hope. It's also been a good encouragement to remember what I know to be true. The rock of remembrance, an Ebenezer. Plus, it's really short, so I can summarize it in a short prayer and remember what's there. So, I like it. I pray, Lord, how long? Lord, I don't understand. And Lord, thank you for being so good to me. I can't pack 27 years of thoughts into a single sermon, nor should I, but I do hope that you love it as I do. Let's read Psalm 13, and then we'll go to the Lord in prayer. 

“How long, oh Lord, will you forget me forever? 

How long will you hide your face from me? 

How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? 

How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? 

Consider and answer me, oh Lord my God. 

Light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death. 

Lest my enemies say, I have prevailed over him. 

Lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken. 

But I have trusted in your steadfast love. 

My heart shall rejoice in your salvation. 

I will sing to the Lord because he has dealt bountifully with me.“

Amen. Would you join me in prayer? 

Father, would you open your word to us? Would you speak to us through it? For we need you to speak to us through your word. Father, we look to you in this night, that we might be encouraged, perhaps provoked, but also to remember that you are indeed our good Father who has dealt bountifully with us. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. 

When our children were young, we tried to teach them what patience was. We told them – well, I don't know how successful we were – but we told them that patience was being happy while you wait. Well, maybe being content while you wait would have been slightly more accurate, but we were speaking to toddlers. So, be happy while you wait. I think it was a little lost on a toddler. And of course, waiting is hard. By and large, the natural human disposition is to want instant gratification, instant justice. Perhaps some of us have learned to be content in all things, both in plenty and in want. But most of us have probably only learned how to be content in plenty until we have plenty of that and then we want different kinds of plenty. But in any case, waiting is not our favorite. 

Well, when my oldest son was still just a little bitty guy, he loved to announce all the different vehicles that would roll down the road. Thankfully, we lived in South Carol or South Dakota, so there weren't many vehicles to announce, because it was constant. Something would go by and “truck!” or he would say “pickup,” because in the Dakotas it's “pickup” not “truck,” but “Pickup! Sedan! Big truck!” when there was a big – oh man, when the grain trucks went by, it was a good shout. When he learned what a boat was, that started as well. Well when we decided to move from South Dakota, I made the mistake of telling him that we would rent a moving van and he would get to ride in a big truck. He was ecstatic, and it was a painful several months that he would ask me – I don't know how much he asked me – "Are we going to ride in the big–?" “Not today.” Sadness would just fill the room. But when the day came, oh, pure excitement. We're riding in a big truck. 

Well, delayed hopes and dreams can be hard. And this life, however, throws at us more than delayed hopes and dreams. Some dreams are simply dashed altogether. But also, at times truly dire things happen. Difficult situations arrive. And in Psalm 13, David was in danger. Sorrow had overwhelmed him. He felt alone. He was it seems as though he was near death. It appears that he needed to renew his confidence in the steadfast love of God. He was almost shaken, or at least he was worried that others might say he was shaken. One thing I really love about this psalm is that it is very realistic with the human condition. It presents us, I think, with a balanced heart – one that laments, one that prays for hope and light, and then one that speaks truth to itself. Well, I will try to make the case, even though I'm not really making a formal argument, but I will try to make the case that your heart, to be a healthy heart, needs all all three: lament, and understanding – or hope, light – and you need to speak truth to yourself, to remind yourself of the truth. This psalm, like so many others, present us with three clear sections. Verse 1 and 2 is a section, verse 3 and 4, and then verse 5 and 6. 

I considered several different titles for this sermon. What made it into the bulletin was Lament, Light, and Laughter. I considered Sorrow, Supplication, and Singing. I considered Woe Is Me: Tell Me Why and I Will Rejoice. I also considered Feeling Forgotten, Feeling Desperation, and Feeling Secure. But I like this one – this was the one that probably should have made it in the bulletin: Ack!, Help and Sing. This psalm seems to capture that strange prayer we find in Psalm 51 as David deals with the aftermath of his sin. He laments his own sin. He prays, "Let me hear joy and gladness. Let the bones that you have broken rejoice." In this life, the Lord leads us and refines us so that we might lament honestly, request boldly, and be active in rejoicing. 

Before I press into the passage, I do have one caveat. And I understand that caveats can sort of hamstring what you're about to say, so I hope to avoid that. But in this case, I think one caveat is good. I'm about to speak on lamenting, sorrow, and brokenness. Well, that's kind of heavy. And there is a strain in Christian teaching that can emphasize brokenness and weakness so much that it can make those who are confident or happy or hopeful appear out of touch or insensitive or even unspiritual. Of course, the Apostle Paul says that when we are weak, we are strong. But sometimes I sense that people just sort of want to stay in the dust and the ashes and never get pressed to the end of Psalm 13. And I love how Psalm 13 challenges us on all these fronts. If you're a glass half full type of guy, you won't like verses 1-4. And if you're a glass half empty, you're going to love them. This psalm presses us on both ends. I once heard a speaker say that there are a dozen emotions or so cataloged in the Psalms, and all but one are negative. I don't know. I think it revealed more about the speaker than the Psalms. But nonetheless, Psalm 13 teaches us that we can and do hold experiences, as well as confusion, and then rejoicing at the same time, in tension. It helps finite creatures deal with situations and feelings as well as eternal realities that shape our souls. It presents us with a paradigm for pain and pleasure, for confusion, and yet at the same time confidence. One of the strangest, but perhaps one of the sweetest, things you'll ever see is a family at a funeral. One moment weeping and the next either laughing or rejoicing as they remember the hope of heaven before them. It's astounding. So I'm not going to ask you to enter into your brokenness to find some sort of catharsis. Rather, the scripture leads us to honest lament, persistent prayer, and to be active in rejoicing. 

So caveat now is aside. Let's look at the first two verses. “How long, oh Lord? How long? How long? How long?” After the news of this week, I doubt we need more provocation to lament. However, I think often some of us wonder if it's really okay to cry out like this. Do we actually have permission to lament? After all, I have heard it said that Christians should not lament. I've heard that taught, that Christians should not have hearts full of sorrow, that it might actually be a lack of faith to not live in the victory and the joy of the Lord. Some years ago, I spoke with a a woman who was told she was sinning by being grief-stricken over the loss of a loved one, that it was a lack of faith not to live in the joy of the Lord. Of course, she was grieving over that, too. Now, she had double grief laid on top of her. These sorts of statements can be guilt-inducing because there's sort of a thread of truth in them. I've been told that my joy should not be dependent on my circumstance. Well, that's partially true, but it's not the whole truth. At least, it's a short-sighted view or an immature way to look at the biblical concept of lament. 

So David, as we will see here, is not stoic. At the same time, he's not delusional. He's realistic. David would probably make both prosperity preachers and many Presbyterians fairly uncomfortable. Notice how expressive David is, how forward, almost confrontational with God. Four times in a row, not just three. And you know when things are coming in threes, they're important. And here's four times in a row he cries, "How long?" Perhaps the first one could be read with a sense of quiet hurting. Will you forget me? Am I overlooked? Am I forgotten? I wrote a song that I've never released. It's a little bit of a bluegrass tune, and the first verse goes like this (I won't sing it. I'll just say it): “I was laid down here in the corner. Laid down here to die. Left all alone and forgotten. Alone and pushed aside. Lord, I am but a sinner, a poor and restless child. Lord, you know I have wandered, but oh, don't pass me by.” To be forgotten. How long? 

The second one, I think, could be read like a plea, almost a whimper. Will you not even look at me, Lord? Do you not see me? Maybe the third one could sort of sound like self-pity, taking counsel in my soul. But I don't think it's that so much, as much as it is a complaint. Of course, even saying complaint, that's not permission to simply be a complainer. Complaining biblically is to be honest, not just to be intentionally negative. But for David, misery is beginning to take hold. It's as if he's saying, "I looked into my soul and all I could find was sorrow. It's all I could see. I've tried to work this out. I've looked at my situation. All I can see is sadness. There's no silver lining that I can find. All this goes on all day." How many times have you heard that sort of talk from a hurting person? How many times have you sort of realized, wow, that guy just walks around with a Charlie Brown raincloud over his head? Well, the fourth “how long,” I think, has almost risen to an accusation. It's starting to get a little intense. Lord, really, how long will the enemy come out on top? How long will we deal with destruction, death, and despair? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? Now, I suspect that if an elder or a pastor stood up and prayed like this with unanswered questions, with confusion, with a whimper, with sorrow, we might sort of raise our heads, open our eyes, and say, "Man, is Nathan okay?” We would think something's wrong. And that's kind of the point. Something is wrong. Something is terribly wrong. And David takes it as the time to be honest before his God. David's not making it up. Some scholars think that David wrote this when Saul was chasing him down one side of the mountain and David was running away on the other side of the mountain. He's saying, "Okay, I've been running. You've been promising, but I've been running. How long? Where are you? What's going on? I think we're tempted sometimes to think of David, you know, whenever he speaks, we can hear harp music just sort of tinkling in the background. He's, you know, he's just calm and cool and collected, and he's large and in charge. But David's poetry really does give us a different story. There were days he was just downright depressed. 

David is not alone. As you know, Job lamented his own birth, Jeremiah wept, and it's not just the Lord's servants. The Lord sorrows over sin. As should we. God was sorry he made man. We grieve him when we sin. The Lord wept for a friend who had died and for a whole generation. Grief hit Jesus in the garden just hours before crucifixion and death. There are so many reasons for lament, which is simply the expression of grief, and I want to explore two of those reasons. 

First, very briefly, I could spend a lot of time here but the text doesn't, so I'll just mention it. First, the less obvious – our own sin. Psalm 51 – clear example of lament over sin and of course, confession. I'm not bringing it up so much because it's here in the text, but we simply need to acknowledge that our own sin should grieve us. We could go to several psalms and see that example. So, just wanted to mention it for now. 

And then moving on to the second more obvious reason. It's just simply all the pain of this world. We've seen that shockingly displayed. But there are some in our own body who have lost a baby, lost a spouse, just recently received dire diagnosis. Some are actually dying. Some are lonely. Some are overwhelmed. Plus, add to that disasters, wars, disease, broken relationships between parents and children, broken vows. Now, I know that there are many of you here – and I'm grateful that you are here – there are many that walk up to me with a constant joyful disposition, and I love that. So, you may be going, I don't know, Nathan, this is a little outside my wheelhouse. Maybe you don't understand this kind of emphasis. However, there are others who were abused as a child and live life in the tunnel of confusion. Some have had their lives and relationships with their children really torn because of an angry spouse, and the clouds won't part. Some of us have physical abilities slipping away, day by day. How long, oh Lord, must we live with these scars? David somewhere else prays, “Must I weep on my couch, make my couch wet with my tears all night long?” How long will we hear the enemy whisper, "You are spoiled goods." In a book, Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy, Mark Vroegop writes, "My grief was not tame; it was vicious.” And I think sometimes that is true. I was trying to write what is grief like? I asked myself, what is grief like? I quickly just wrote out grief is a vulture’s talon. It digs deep into the flesh. Its grip is iron. Its intent is to consume all light, all understanding, all life. David's loneliness and sorrow has gotten the best of him, and he feels the talon just curling into his heart. 

David and other psalmists engaged in this way in about 50 times in the Psalter, give or take. About 30 psalms are clearly lament. Another 20 have portions of lament. Some count even more than that. Those are the glass-half-empty scholars. But roughly a third of the Psalter contains some form of lament. If our music here at Christ Covenant mirrored this, you would probably go away and say, "Man, Christ Covenant just sings lots of dirges, lots of minor stuff." If a third of our music represented the laments, most of the modern American church has little to no appetite for lament or even minor music. It's too dark. It's hard to get through. Thankfully, Psalm 13 does, in fact, move quickly from lament to request and from request to rejoicing. Interestingly, the Psalter seems to contain about a third lament, a third petitions, and then a third just sort of call to worship, right? It's maybe not as neat as all that, but many psalms lead us through grief. Many call for the Lord's refuge and salvation, and many call us to worship. Psalm 13 is kind of that in miniature. And I think the pattern here suggests a lifelong lamenting coupled simultaneously with lifelong praying, coupled simultaneously with lifelong rejoicing. Now, this doesn't mean that we're schizophrenic. And I realize as finite creatures, it's hard to hold all these things in our hearts at the same time, in tension. That's a difficult thing to do. Nonetheless, we've talked about lament. Let's add request to our hearts. 

Verse 3 and 4, “Consider and answer me, oh Lord, my God, light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death. Lest my enemies say, ‘I have prevailed over him,’ lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken." David's request is bold. It's to the point. What's a little strange, maybe, to us is that it comes with an argument. It's strange to us, but the psalmists do this a lot. You're familiar with this type of language. Lord, deliver us because if you don't, what will the nations say? That sort of sentiment you find often. Again, I think if we prayed like this, it would be somewhat surprising. And of course, I'm not suggesting that we should bring “gotcha” prayers to God like the Pharisees tried, to corner Jesus. And yet, I think we should be jealous for his fame. In fact, Kevin even prayed that way this morning, jealous for the name of God, the name of the Lord. So, we pray that his name would not be drug through the mud again by another pastor failing morally. Lord, hold your shepherds true in life and doctrine. For your name's sake, we pray. That's the same type of prayer that we find here in Psalm 13. We should be jealous for the name of the Lord. Should our prayers be laced with overt requests? Yes, they should. Plus, I think the content of the prayer is interesting. He prays for light. And as you may know, light generally means understanding or knowledge. Psalm 19:8 says this, "The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes." But also this phrase, "Light up my eyes," speaks to the desire of hope. Ezra 9:8 makes this connection: “Brighten our eyes,” similar phrase, "and grant us a little reviving in our slavery." They needed hope. Lighten our eyes. David needs understanding and reviving. He needs light and hope. First, think about the aspect of light briefly with me. We need the light of the Lord, the light of the gospel. And David has already looked into his own soul. And what did he find? He found sorrow. So now he's going to look to the Lord, because looking to his own heart wasn't working so well. Looking inside is usually not a good answer to depression. In fact, looking to our own hearts for answers can often lead to destruction. We read from Isaiah and from Matthew earlier in the service. Let me read from Isaiah 50 again, just the last portion of that. “Behold, all you who kindle a fire, you who equip yourselves with burning torches, walk by the light of your fire and by the torches that you have kindled.” And this last phrase: “This you have from my hand. You shall lie down in torment.” This sort of sounds like what David was dealing with. He looked to his own heart, his own soul – he finds sorrow. When we look to our own ability, our own understanding, you try to find your own light, fix it on your own – what does the Lord say? The reward is torment. Or consider Matthew 6. Chad Van Dixhoorn led us through this passage last week. Matthew 6:22 – “The eye is the lamp of the body. So if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.” Once again, this last phrase is so fascinating. “If, then, the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness.” This passage, well maybe both of these passages, should bring some level of humility. We can be so convinced of our own light, our own perspective, that we can't actually tell we're in darkness. The Lord says then the darkness is even greater. Whether it's our own fire or our own light, self deception is a constant problem. And David knows he must move on from this. And the next step to deal with his despondency is to depend upon the Lord, to ask for understanding, for light, for hope. He assumes – after crying out – he assumes that he's not seeing the situation rightly. If you're human, you should assume the same, especially when it comes to issues of the heart. David needs divine light. 

Next, briefly consider the aspect of hope. Ephesians 1:18, you don't have to turn there, but it connects these two things really nicely. It says this: "Having the eyes of your hearts enlightened," there's a similar type of phrase, "that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints?" Well, that's what David needs. He prays because he doesn't want to be shaken. He wants the name of the Lord to be glorified. So he prays for light and hope, and then he moves toward remembering the character and nature of his Lord, that he's been good and gracious. So I hope you're still lamenting and now you're making requests and to these two things we're going to add a third. We've done the act, we've done the help, and now the third strand: sing. 

I love this psalm. It often is one I take with me when I walk into a hospital room. Why? Because anytime you're in a hospital bed is an appropriate time to say, "How long?" It takes way too long to get out of that, no matter what. Every time you recall the pain of the past, we need to ask for greater light, greater hope. And every time you're down with a new challenge, you need to recall and to sing of the goodness of the Lord. He says, "But I have trusted in your steadfast love. My heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord because he has dealt bountifully with me." When tragedy hits, or when sorrows like sea billows roll, what have you been taught to say? It is well with my soul. But here's the deal. When that happens, when we're weighed down, we can become forgetful of the past. We can become forgetful of present blessings, future blessings. That's why we need to sing those songs so they come back up in our hearts. That's why David needed to sing these songs. David needed a song with a refrain that would tell him the right thing to think. So he cries out, the sea billows are rolling, he says, "Lord, please give me hope." And here's the refrain: it is well. “I have trusted in your steadfast love.” David needs a song stuck in his head. So, he writes one. It's a good song to get stuck in your head. And he goes through this process. Lament, help, singing. 

Think about the process that Job went through. Chapter 1 – Job falls down and worships. Chapter 3 – he wonders why in the world he was born. Chapter 6 – he says, "I will bring my complaint and my argument before God almighty." Chapter 7 – I have no hope. How many nights of pain will be allotted to me? How long until I rise? I need answers. I need hope. Give me light. Chapter 12 – he recognizes the Lord has brought this upon him. Chapter 13 – but I will still hope in God, because chapter 19 – my Redeemer lives. Job is walking through the same sort of pattern. Do you see what's happening? Lament overwhelms him. Then he boldly storms the throne. Feels almost a little too bold to us. And then it takes him a while, but he knows that his Redeemer lives. He reminds himself, not in these words, but reminds himself of the glorious inheritance of the saints – His Redeemer. He recalls that the Lord is ultimately good to him. And so in chapter 31, he says, "I will trust in God Almighty; oh that he would hear me." 

Job and David follow the redeemed heart's path. They wail for pain. They wait for answers. And they worship God, because they know him. They know his steadfast love. Once again in Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy, Mark quotes Tim Keller. I had not seen this one – I probably should have seen this quote before – but Tim Keller wrote, "We may hear our hearts say it's hopeless, but we should argue back." Great quote. And we learn in this psalm that the best way to go is to cry out, ask for light, and then talk back, argue back, remind ourselves of the goodness of the Lord, remember his words and his promises. Now, I said at the outset that I would try to make the case that your heart needs these three things – lament, petition, rejoicing – and that we want our hearts to be shaped by this path. We need lament, whether that be calamity or we're facing destruction because of our own sin. And then we need to boldly come to the throne of God, and we must rejoice. Certainly there are different levels of lament. I understand that, just as there are different levels of crying out for answers, different levels of rejoicing. And I realize it's pretty much impossible to live life always at a fevered pitch, as if you're Job every day or David every day. That's not what I'm suggesting that we do. Some lamenting. And maybe this is a good opportunity to teach our children how to lament. But some lamenting comes at the loss of a family pet. Some comes with normal and expected but still difficult situations like losing a parent or a child, a grandparent. Some lamenting goes much deeper with abuse. But also, I doubt we lament over our sin enough. I won't use his name, but in some conversation this week, someone wrote, someone here at the church wrote, "We ought to be burdened by the evil of the world. But I confess I'm rarely ever as burdened by the evil raging inside of me.” It caught my eye. It's good to circle around. I don't want to diminish the gravity of national news. And yet, it's worth noting that what caused Jesus to cry out to his Father in the garden was the weight of sin that he was about to bear. Should we not grieve when we grieve the Lord? So, the answer is not either/or. It's a both/and. And the level of lament will probably drive the urgency of our prayers, and then of course the elation of salvation or relief. We don't have time to trace this idea but I sort of sense that those who suffer in Christ deeply now will deeply appreciate the glory that is to come, the glory that is beyond measure. Do we pray with an urgency that the Lord might rid us of sin, that the Lord might work out his mercy and justice in the world? 

Just a couple more notes, as I close. Biblical lament should not be stagnant. David allowed it to move him to prayer and then rejoicing. Grief is an opportunity to cry out, so that we might ask for help, so that we might remember our position in Christ, so that the promise of glory becomes sweeter than honey. Now, in reality, we're often waiting or circling around in this spiritual exercise, but the point is that ultimately, we won't be stuck in lament and mourning. We move to prayer and rejoicing. Eventually, we get to ride in the big truck. Psalm 13 reminds us that we move through our lamentations toward the wonderful truth that the Lord's mercies are new every morning. I'm convinced that humans can sort of train themselves to like almost anything, both terrible and good. We can train ourselves to like almost anything. Some have even trained themselves to like Twizzlers. I don't know how, but it happens. We can, likewise, train ourselves with a passage like Psalm 13 to sorrow when those are sorrowing around us, to pray urgently, and to lead each other in singing. Psalm 13 provides permission to cry out, and in this life we should expect the need to cry out over and over again. However, it's not permission to intentionally stay stuck in lament. That would be called self-pity. Instead, it's a pattern for us. And when we are undone, when we are destabilized, we lean on the only one who is steadfast. It's permission to lament and provocation unto Christ. We ask for light, and we are reminded and trust in the steadfast love of the Lord, to remember that your Redeemer liveth and to sing because he has dealt bountifully with us. In the 7th century, the Italian hymnwriter Venantius Fortunatus wrote this: “Sing, my tongue, of that engagement of the struggle glorious. Tell, too, of that famous triumph on the trophy of the cross. How the world's Redeemer was sacrificed victorious.” 

We don't know how long. We don't usually understand why. But the Lord is the light of all men. And we rejoice knowing that Christ had a painful but glorious struggle against sin, darkness, and the devil. And he was victorious. And now the glorious inheritance of the saints is secure. Neither shall there be mourning nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. Amen. Let's pray. 

Father, would you help us when the time is right to be able to cry out how long, whether that be for ourselves, our friends, or our nation? Would you help us seek you in all things that we may be given greater light and greater hope? And above all, would you keep Christ clearly fixed in our eyes that we may have an eternal perspective and sing throughout all eternity. In Christ's name, I pray. Amen.