Lament and Sustenance in the COVID-19 Wilderness series
The video series we present here for use by individuals or study groups is of timeless value. It was originally titled Lament and Sustenance in the COVID-19 Wilderness and offered in June 2020.
While there will be some references to this disastrous pandemic, the teaching provided by Dr. Fred Niedner transcends particular circumstances as it probes the existential questions that prompt lament. Both the legitimacy and necessity of lament and the sustenance provided by God through difficult periods are woven together in the brilliant biblical teaching in these videos.
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Sessions Include:
Session 1:
IN THE WILDERNESS (June 4, 2020)
Stories of life and times in the wilderness run all through the Bible, and together they teach us
that wilderness is a spiritual and existential place, not merely a name for geographical terrains In
particular, the wilderness sojourns of Israel and Jesus teach us that wilderness is a place in which
our language, categories, and meaning-making skills fail us even as we murmur, blame, scapegoat
one anohter, and succumb to temptations to fill the emptiness we experience with things that
cannot satisfy. (Biblical texts: Exodus 15-34 and Matthew 4:1-11)
“Wilderness” in Hebrew = midbar, “the place beyond words….”
Session 2:
WHERE IS GOD NOW? (June 11, 2020)
In some ways, the most crushing blow we suffer in our wilderness trek is the collapse of our
theologies, God is not who, what, or where we thought and believed, and even the first inkling of
this failure casts us into isolation, denial, and a search for easy, palliative bromides. The language
of honesty and true confession for such times is lament, and the biblical record abounds with it.
Psalmists, prophets, and even old Moses happily bequeath us their laments and teach us to
fashion our own. (Biblical texts: Exodus 33; Psalms 22, 31, 42, 130; Jeremiah 20; Lamentations).
It is no part of Christian vocation to be able to explain what is happening and why. In fact, it is
part of the Christian vocation not to be able to explain – and to lament instead. As the Spirit
laments within us, so we become, even in our self isolation, tabernacles where the presence and
healing love of God can dwell.
Session 3:
GOD WITH US (June 18, 2020)
Theology of the cross, finding God revealed to and with us amid the darkness of God’s
absence, is the only theology left to us in the wilderness, but it is enough. We not only
hear and learn the story of the cross, we come to inhabit it, and daily we touch and are
held by the wounded hands of the risen Christ on the loose in the world — and in our
wilderness. (Biblical text: The Gospel according to Mark).’
Session 4:
Praxis: The Literature of Lament (June 25, 2020)
Stories of life and times in the wilderness run all through the Bible, and together they teach us
that wilderness is a spiritual and existential place, not merely a name for geographical terrains In
particular, the wilderness sojourns of Israel and Jesus teach us that wilderness is a place in which
our language, categories, and meaning-making skills fail us even as we murmur, blame, scapegoat
one anohter, and succumb to temptations to fill the emptiness we experience with things that
cannot satisfy. (Biblical texts: Exodus 15-34 and Matthew 4:1-11)
“Wilderness” in Hebrew = midbar, “the place beyond words….”
