There could be no book of Lamentions if there were no God. If there is no God, no grand plan, no purpose or reason for our existence other than being an accident of time and space - then lamenting makes no sense. If you cry out, "Why?" - the answer is "Why not?" If you ask, "How can this be?" - the answer is, "why shouldn't it be?"

But the response changes if there is a God, a grand plan, a purpose, a reason. If - as Christians claim - the Book of Revelation is not just a hopeful vision - but rather an actuality that is already real in God's timeline even if it hasn't happened in ours yet - then a lament is not only perfectly acceptable - but necessary. "How can this be?" - we ask. And we expect God to answer. And the most important part of the grieving and mourning process is the waiting for that answer.

I normally don't like to spoil the ending - but in this case, I must. As dark and smelly and loud as it is going to get when we ask God, "how can this be?" - there is a reason to stick around until the end.

We are paying the price of our sin - and the sin of our family and neighbors and community and the strangers we've never met. "Everything happens for a reason" - and our reason is sin. I get that we don't like it. And it's possible we aren't as guilty as others. But we are guilty. That's what this day is all about. And sitting by the river, refusing to sing while we wait for God to fix things - isn't going to help.

It's a day of penitence. A day to be honest about who we are as fragile, mortal creatures. We lament the condition of the world - and our own condition. We think about the sins which brought us to where we are today. I'll go first - I'm sorry for all the things I ever said that hurt or offended you. I'm sorry for not being the person you needed me to be. Hebrews 5 says the pastor has to first confess his sins and receive God's forgiveness before he can hear the sins of God's people and speak to them God's word of forgiveness. Something I need to take to heart.

There is a very tiny speck of light in all this darkness. There is a muted echo of the word alleluia wafting in the wind. There is the smell of incense as our prayers rise to God. There is still the promise of our laments turning into songs of joy.

We don't know when Peter, James and John finally told everyone what they had seen and heard on that mountaintop. Once Jesus was dead, there was no sense in keeping the secret anymore.

I know most of us like to think if we had been there - if Jesus had told us He was going to die and rise again after three days - we would have believed Him. We would have been standing outside the tomb with a "welcome back" banner, some cake and maybe some presents. But the truth is - I doubt it.

When I pour the water over the head of a child - do you believe it actually washes away their sin and makes them a child of God - that simple water and a few words are enough to cheat death? When you taste that little wafer and sip the wine - do you actually believe it's the body and blood of Jesus - that mysteriously the wafer and wine are now also Jesus in the flesh - emptying you of your sin and filling you up with God's love and mercy? When you hear God's Word read - can you tell it's different than all the other words in the world that get read?

To say that God is a mystery is in a way saying you can't quite nail Him down - that there is something more to Him and His Word and Sacraments that no matter how hard we try - we can't fully comprehend - and so we must take them on faith. And I suppose, if we want to take the metaphor just a little further - Pontius Pilate and the Roman soldiers couldn't nail Jesus down either - they tried - but He just got up out of the grave and went back to loving and forgiving and healing and raising others from their graves.