Prayer of Lament

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Prayer sermon ideas

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What are the different types of prayer?

    There are many different types of prayer that are appropraite for different circumstances and concerns.

    How do I write a prayer for worship?

    In corporate worship, prayer too is corporate. Consider ways to invite the congregation to participate actively in the prayer:

    • Use phrases like "we offer . . ." or "we join our hearts . . ." or "let us bring our concerns and thanksgivings"
    • Use a corporate spoken response throughout the prayer, such as "Lord, hear our prayer"
    • Use a sung refrain throughout the prayer

    Who hears our prayers?

    In the heavenly realms prayer is heard (or overheard) by more than one listener. For one thing, God is triune. Strong trinitarians may conclude that three listen, not just one. But then there's also the heavenly council, the ranks of angels and archangels. Perhaps they hear prayer. For all we know, so do the saints and martyrs. We surely don't know they don't. The point is that we likely pray into a whole cloud of witnesses.

    Paul says that not only mere humans intercede. So what if a homeless Christian under a bridge prays to God? He doesn't have a prayer chain from his church to lobby God. The two other guys under the bridge are too out of it to intercede. But what if Christ, our mediator, intercedes for him? What if the Holy Spirit groans over him? What if angels and saints and martyrs light heaven up with their intercessions for him? "Lord—and anybody else who may be listening—hear my prayer."

    Prayer calls for reverence before a holy God. Christians are aware that it is God to whom they pray. God is high—in fact, most high. God dwells in realms of glory. God is terrifying in purity, and the sworn foe of all evil. The Bible tells us that God's holiness in the temple was sometimes so intense that the priests had to back up. God was too hot for them that day. Once upon a time people loved God, but they also feared God because God is not domestic, not predictable, not safe at all.

    Finally, prayer is opportunity for fellowship with a loving God. We have a God who listens, who loves, who yearns for the best in us. We may pour ourselves out to God, knowing that at the end we will get ourselves back—stronger, cleaner, and more deeply loved than ever.

    How do I write a prayer for students and teachers going back to school?

    Corporate prayer may provide a good opportunity to acknowledge community events and seasons in worship. For instance, you could offer aprayerof intercession or commission for students and teachers going back to school, as in these examples from our search results:

    • "Hear the word of the Lord. I knew you before I gave you life. I chose you before you were born. I send you now to school. Be my people there. Share my love with everyone you meet there. Stand up for my ways in classrooms, in locker rooms, on playgrounds, in lunchrooms, and on the bus." (from Jeremiah 1:4-10) Carolyn C. Brown from Worshiping with Children
    • "O Lord, you who have called and equipped the teachers in our community, we pray for them today. Watch over them, provide for them, guide them, sustain them. May you be their sun and shield, so that they might do the work that you have entrusted to them. Amen." W. David O. Taylor

    • More worship ideas for "back to school" from Zeteosearch.org

    Where is prayer in the Bible?

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    Lament sermon ideas

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    What is lament? How do I write lament?

    Lament expresses grief and frustration at situation of brokenness in the world. They are honest expressions before God. The biblical psalms feature many laments, showing us that no experience in life is too difficult to be brought before God.

    So, when we write a lament we come before God as an implicit act of faith, turning to God as our only source of hope and comfort. This is modeled in Psalm 42 where it says "My tears have been my food day and night." This phrase leads to a resolute statement of trust: "hope in God; for I shall again praise God."

    Lament can function well as an extension to the prayer of confession, perhaps with a time of silence and a statement of our confidence in God's promise to redeem the world in Christ.

    Where does lament come from?

    Throughout the psalms, lament and praise are in tension. Nearly all of the psalms of lament include or end with praise. Both are authentic expressions of faith.

    • Lament takes faith. The psalms of lament are full of questions because the psalmists believe in a God of unfailing love. How long, Lord, how long? Why, Lord, why? When, Lord, when? Lament makes no sense if God is indifferent or off duty. Lament makes sense only if God is a God of unfailing love.
    • Lament arises from pain, but it also arises from confusion ("My God, my God, why ?") or from indignation ("I know how many are your transgressions"), or from impatience ("When ?) or from longsuffering now curdling into exasperation ("How long?).

    Unbelief shakes its fist at God or dismisses God or tries to get an invasive God off its back. It's faith that laments. Faith wrestles with God because trouble and enemies and terror all are anomalies in God's world. They don't belong there.

    In a world in which the King of the universe has unfailing love, these things should not happen. But there they are, and so the believer points them out to God and laments them.

    These terrible things should not be.

    • A young medical student in India should not be gang-raped on a public bus and beaten and left for dead. How long, Lord, how long?
    • A man in Webster, New York, should not set his house on fire to lure firefighters into a trap so that he may kill them there. How long, Lord, how long?
    • A gunman should not enter the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, and think in his arrogance that he has the right to destroy the lives of twenty children and six adults and everybody who loved them. How long, Lord, how long?

    Anguish from pain, anguish from absorbing the whole world's sin, anguish at experiencing abandonment—Jesus might as well have said, "How long, Lord, how long?" How long? Just long enough till he could say for us sinners, "It is finished."

    Kyrie Eleison

    The early church had spoken or sung refrains expressing lament and confession.

    Kyrie eleison (Lord, have mercy).
    Christe eleison (Christ, have mercy).
    Kyrie eleison (Lord, have mercy).

    Trisagion

    Meaning "three times," the trisagion is a refrain from the early church that can be spoken or sung. Like the Kyrie, it expresses both confession and lament:

    Holy God,
    holy and mighty,
    holy immortal One,
    have mercy on us.

    Where do laments appear in the Bible?

    Many readers of the psalms have noticed that laments within them are not rare. They are common and deeply meant. It seems natural to the psalmists to complain to God because, after all, who else is in charge? Whose world is this? Whose kingdom? Who is the source of overflowing love? Who remains the source of overflowing love right through all our lament?

    The psalms of lament are full of questions because the psalmists believe in a "God of unfailing love" (Ps. 6). Lament makes no sense if God is indifferent or off duty. Lament makes sense only if God is a God of unfailing love.

    On the cross, Jesus honored every lamenting psalmist by himself lamenting, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" That's Psalm 22, and Jesus took it from his heart and memory and onto his lips.

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