Mourning Songs

I am the beneficiary of a generational revival of Lent. My fellow X and Millennial Christians, tired of consumerism and anti-intellectualism, embrace the art, beauty and rhythm of church liturgy and calendar. Of course, our parents rebelled against the spiritual deadness and old-school stodginess of tired liturgical churches. It makes me wonder what we're doing that my daughter will deconstruct to form her own spirituality.

In any case, the rhythm and art of liturgy is sweet worship for me, and this season of Lent touches it even deeper. I see why so many Christians, through space and time, celebrate and have celebrated our Three-Personal God through seasons, stages and processes, weekly, daily and yearly. My role as worship leader underscores this even more, because I have regular responsibilities in song selections. During Lent, we avoid songs with the word "Hallelujah" (or its variations). More importantly, as Lent is a time to mortify our sins, we sing some beautiful songs of mourning.

There are two types of mourning songs. The first type wrestles with the problem of evil. Songs such as Matt Redman's "Blessed Be Your Name," or Tim Hughes' "Whole World in His Hands" and "When the Silence Falls." These songs are powerful, and it is appropriate that they are so popular. In this fallen world of tragedy both public and personal (the earthquake in Japan being our most recent reminder), we need these songs, as much as Job, as much as the Psalmists.

The Lenten songs of mourning don't climb charts like the others do, but they are equally powerful and equally necessary. I'll admit, many of them are not especially satisfying, and in that, they serve the purpose of Lent - self examination, confession and repentance. It is never a comfortable or (in a way) particularly refreshing for these songs to turn the tables on us. With the "problem of evil" songs, we raise our arms and cry to God, "why?" With the Lenten songs, we examine the uncomfortable fact that we are at least part of the answer, that there is evil within us that requires light and cleansing. The other day, one of my fellow worship leaders and I practiced "Before Thy Throne, O God, We Kneel," where we ask, in catchy tune and clever verse, for "a ready mind to understand/the meaning of thy chastening hand/whate'er the pain and shame may be/bring us, O Father, nearer thee."

Other Lenten mourning songs include: "By Thy Mercy," "Psalm 51: God Be Merciful To Me" (based on David's psalm of repentance), "Psalm 130: From the Depths of Woe" (a Martin Luther hymn that understands our dependence on God's grace) and "Poor Sinner Dejected with Fear" (how's that for a cheery title?). As these songs, often painfully, soften our heart for repentance, it is good to realize that Lent should prepare us for Easter (please note: this link is to the first of my church's home-grown Lenten devotional. I highly recommend subscribing to it). In forty days' time, we go before the cross and then celebrate the Resurrection. Then, we will sing the songs of cross and Resurrection. They are beautiful, and I look forward drinking them deeply. But how much more beautiful are they when we come before God unshackled from sin? How much more beautiful is this song under the lightness of forgiveness?

Until then, we continue to sing:

"Let the fierce fires which burn and try
Our inmost spirits purify
consume the ill; purge out the shame
O God, be with us in the flame!
A newborn people may we rise
more pure, more true, more nobly wise"