Chapter One
The Path of Sovereign Sorrow
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Before there were drops of rain, human tears fell in the garden, and
that was when lament began. In Eden, Adam and Eve enjoyed the unbroken
Presence of God. It was immediate and intimate. His hesed, an untranslatable
Hebrew word often rendered "loving-kindness," was a given, reliable as the
fresh, newly created air they both breathed.
Then, in a moment when the Presence seemed somehow impossibly
absent, in some forgotten corner of the garden, Satan, the Accuser and ultimate
cause of all lament, called into question the hesed of God.
"Here is some wonderful, life-giving fruit that He does not want you to
have," he, in effect, hissed at Eve. He longed to deceive the first couple into
believing that in order to know God, they only needed to know and receive
His gifts. The great lie was that God's gifts were all that He was. The temptation
was to believe that if the gift could not be had, then it was somehow
not really real and neither was God's love. Do these vile whisperings sound
at all familiar to you? Do you remember ever hearing them in some dark
forgotten corner of your heart?
When it seemed His Presence was absent, the Accuser accused God of
acting in a way inconsistent with His hesed. After all, Someone who is truly
loving does not keep good gifts from His children, does He?
"Why doesn't He?"
"Where is He?"
And so the bite was taken. But it was not simply the bite itself that caused
the Fall and gave birth to the first groanings of lament from both creature and
creation. The bite was only a consequent act of disbelief. It was the denial and
doubting of God's hesed that led to the dis-belief that caused the two prodigals
to be driven into the wilderness of His absence, never to return. It was bound
up with the mis-belief that God was only the sum of His gifts and no more.
All this flowing from the stubborn sin of un-belief.
As the two outcasts made their stumbling way out of the garden, the hesed
of God caused an innocent animal to be sacrificed to make garments to cover
the nakedness of the first couple, so they would know they were naked. By
such sacrifices, their sins would be covered until the time when they would
be washed away by a final torrential wave of hesed that would break down the
hillside of Golgotha, as One who was Himself the Presence of God would
cry out in lament.
The Presence that had always been (and sadly would have always been)
palpable and immediate was altered, seemingly broken, and lament became
the language of Adam and Eve, of you and me, and indeed of all creation (see
Romans 8:22).
Hesed disbelieved.
Presence seemingly broken.
The lamentable journey began through Adam for all mankind. But the
heartbreaking sorrow of the three (Adam, Eve, and God) was not and could
never be beyond His perfect intention. It was a sovereign sorrow that fell
upon the world, a wordless sorrow beyond our knowing. And as His loving
wisdom does with all things, even and especially with our sin, God would
redeem their disobedience and sorrow, transforming it by means of His hesed
into a pathway back to the loving-kindness of His Presence.
It was a shadowy path that began outside the garden. It meanders
through all our lives, inevitably leading us through the darkest valleys of our
fallen experience. But we must never forget that it is a path, that it is goingsomewhere. There is a final destination somewhere outside the gates of a city.
But I'm getting ahead of myself for now.
As we make our way along the shadowy twists and turns of the way of
lament, two questions confront us again and again. They are echoes of the
experience of the first couple in the garden. If you dig deeply enough you will
discover that one or both of them lie at the heart of every lament, from Job's
to Jesus'. The two fundamental questions of complaint:
God, where are you? (Presence)
God, if You love me, then why? (hesed)
