We've spent most of the last three weeks talking about what lament IS--today, we are going to talk about what lament is NOT. There are many different theories of who the women in Luke 23 are, but I'm going to go with the one that made the most sense to me.
We learned about Jeremiah on Tuesday ("Sit Here and Cry"). He is given the very difficult task of letting Judah know that they will be exiled as punishment for their unrepentant hearts. King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon comes into the country and sends it into chaos. Jeremiah has been given the words to say to the people, so he knows what's going to happen. He sees them sitting in ignorance, pouting over how rough they have it. (And they do, but it's of their own stubborn making.) Jeremiah weeps over Judah, he hears the cry of his people. They worship worthless idols; they've been given a time to reap what they have sown, and it is not a crop of salvation. He prays for some kind of medicine or doctor who can help. He wants them to be healed, but he also knows they are liars, adulterers, treacherous. God is going to raise a lament over the mountains, a sad song to be sung over the wilderness. So God tells Jeremiah to start preparing--summon the women who mourn. He calls them to get the lament started, to get everyone crying! They will be crying the sad songs, but God Himself will be writing the lyrics.
Professional mourners were extremely common in ancient times. (Maybe even still in certain cultures. I didn't research that.) They were usually women, and they were hired and paid by the family of the deceased. The richer you were--the bigger the crowd, the louder the wailing. A professional mourner would get the crowd riled up by crying, wailing, screaming, tearing the skin on their faces and arms, tearing their clothes. The grief would hopefully (😓) be contagious, and by the time they got to the burial site, the crowd would be worked up into a near frenzy!
This is what God was calling for in Judah. The people were so hard-hearted they couldn't even cry for themselves, they needed to be worked up. Death has climbed through their windows and they don't even seem to care.
In Luke, Jesus is on His way to the cross. This is when Simon the Cyrene was told to carry the cross for Jesus. They were followed by a crowd interspersed with wailing, crying, screaming women. This is where the commentaries differ--some believe these women were committed, loyal followers of Jesus, truly mourning His imminent death. Others believe these were professional mourners. I am going to side with the latter, because Jesus uses some of His final moments to preach a sermon to them. If they were already loyal, committed followers, I think He would comfort them. He calls them "Daughters of Jerusalem" and says " Don't Cry For Me Cry for yourselves and your children." Jesus needed to die for redemption to come, and that is not something to be mourned. He's doing it FOR them, for the daughters of the city He lamented over. He wants them to accept Him before it's too late. Jesus is saying His death is not the worst thing that will ever happen! Living without Him, without the protection He provides, with only the mountains and hills to cover us from judgment--that is the worst thing that can happen. That's what He's dying to change.
Lament is crying out to God with a list and returning to praise. It is not working people into a frenzy of lament because of all of Jesus physically went through for us. (But don't forget it either--it's a lot.) It's mourning what a life without Him looks like. It's mourning those in exile, an exile made of their own choosing--choosing idols, choosing lies. We should lament over those who have no hope for themselves or their children. Like Judah, Jesus was heading to certain death. Unlike Judah, He didn't deserve it. He chose it! His death was not an occasion to mourn, it was an occasion to PRAISE!! If we find ourselves as women who are called to work up sadness in the lives of others, may it be a lament that leads to repentance.
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