Lamentations 3:19-26
The Old Testament book of Lamentations is perhaps one of the lesser known and least quoted books of the Bible. It is written as a series of five poems lamenting the suffering resulting from the destruction of Jerusalem and Judea by the Babylonian army around 600 BC. Our text today is from the 3rd chapter, but we’re going to talk about aspects of the entire book.
Lamentations tells us that the people’s suffering was immense. The Temple, the King’s palace and the city walls were destroyed. Many people died during the lengthy siege of Jerusalem. People were living in the streets because Babylonian soldiers had taken over their houses. Many were forcibly removed to other lands. Those who remained in Judea were starving. The social, economic, cultural, and religious structures of society had collapsed.
I’m going to quote a few of the verses describing the awfulness of the Judeans’ experience. But first let me give what in school classrooms today is called a “trigger warning.” These verses are very hard to hear and may be traumatic for some.
We read:
“Those killed by the sword are better off than those who die by famine.” “All her people groan as they search for bread.” “Their skin has shriveled on their bones, wracked by hunger they are wasting away.”
“Children beg for bread, but no one gives it to them. “They faint in the streets.” “Infants’ lives ebb away in their mothers’ arms.” “Compassionate women have cooked their own children for food.”
“Women have been violated, princes hung by their hands, older people beaten, and young men put to work as slaves.”
One of the startling things about the Scriptures is their truthfulness. Here in Lamentations the reality of human misery is presented raw and unadorned. Human beings have suffered throughout history in the ways described in this book of the Bible.
Today the people of Gaza are suffering in ways that mirror in many respects the devastation of Jerusalem and Judea. Out of a Gaza population of 2.2 million, it is estimated that more than 60,000 civilians have been killed in the war, including many thousands of children. Ninety percent of the homes have been damaged or destroyed, and people are living in tents and makeshift shelters. People are starving from lack food and dying from lack of medical care.
Here’s what one aid worker writes, that could be a quote from Lamentations: “People are collapsing in the streets from emaciation. I saw a child digging through a pile of trash looking for food, but he found nothing, there were no scraps left. Starvation is unfolding in real time.”
We rightly look to Scripture for encouragement and hope in the challenges that we face in life. And Scripture provides hope, even here in Lamentations. Yet we see that before he can embrace hope, the Lamentations poet expresses despair and anger. He rages at Babylon, at corrupt Israelite leaders, and even at God.
He struggles in confusion to understand God’s role in what has happened. “The Lord is like an enemy,” he writes, “He has multiplied mourning and lamentation for Judah.” Yet in another verse he says, “God does not willingly bring affliction and grief to human beings,” contradicting his despairing cries blaming God for Israel’s misery.
We too struggle at times to understand why God allows us to experience adversity. The New Testament tells us that God doesn’t cause our suffering. We understand that the world is broken and that bad things sometimes happen to good people. That’s the reality of life in our fallen world.
Yet we still wonder why God doesn’t rescue us. “Even when I call out and cry for help, God shuts out my prayer,” the poet laments. “You have wrapped yourself in a cloud so that no prayer can pass through” he reproaches God.
It wasn’t true that God was unhearing and uncaring. That’s not what God is like. But that’s how things looked and how the poet understandably felt. The book of Lamentations expresses the poet’s cry of anguish. Lamentations depicts humanity’s heartbroken howl in the midst of devastation.
It’s not a sin to express anger to God and wonder where he is and what he’s doing. Lament is a faithful expression of our relationship with God. That’s because we’re bringing our hurt to God, we’re engaging God intimately in our distress.
Nobel Peace Prize recipient Elie Wiesel was imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp as a boy and his family perished there – simply because they were Jewish. Afterwards, as an adult, he struggled to understand how it was possible to believe in God after the horror of the Holocaust.
Yet he wrote, “I have never renounced my faith in God. I have risen against His justice, and protested His silence and sometimes His absence, but my anger rises up within faith and not outside it.” Elie Wiesel’s persevering faith is a model for us.
Lamentations shows us the depths of human pain and suffering. But it also shows us the possibility of faith and hope in the worst of times. In today’s text, the poet writes:
“Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion; therefore, I will wait for him.”
In the midst of horrific circumstances, the poet finds that he is able to choose faith and hope.
One of my favorite stories in Scripture is about David when David was living in the city of Ziklag. He is on the run from King Saul, who wants to kill him. One day when David and his men were away, the Amalekites raided Ziklag. They burned down the city and abducted their wives and children.
David’s men were on the verge of stoning David for the loss of their families. But Scripture says that “David encouraged himself in the Lord.” Even before God told him that all their families would be rescued, David chose faith over fear. And by God’s grace, so can we.
Some years ago I would wake up in the middle of the night full of fear. I was fearful of a particular bad thing happening. Night after night I struggled.
Then one night I felt God speak to me, not in an audible voice, but in my spirit. God told me that I didn’t need to experience this anxiety. That by God’s grace I could make the choice to stop fearing and to trust God. I could choose faith and hope.
God wasn’t promising that the circumstances would change, at least not right away. Nor was he guaranteeing a happy outcome. The future remained uncertain. But with God’s help, I could choose faith over fear. So I did, and the nightly anxiety disappeared.
Choosing faith over fear in hard times is a power God gives us, a choice we can make.
We should note, though, that the faith and hope in God which the poet expresses in today’s text wasn’t the end of his struggle. As we read on, we see that he swings back and forth, sometimes doubting and blaming God, and sometimes expressing faith in God’s love and mercy.
Likewise for us, choosing faith may not be a “one and done” kind of thing. We too may need to choose faith again and again during difficult times.
Let’s conclude by observing that even Jesus cried out in anguish on the cross. Quoting Psalm 22, he cried “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.” At that moment Jesus’ emotions screamed abandonment.
Yet despite of the devastating circumstances, and what he felt, Jesus made the choice to believe that God hadn’t truly forsaken him, as Psalm 22 had declared. To affirm that God was with him then and always. In that confidence he says to God, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”
At a moment on the cross Jesus felt abandoned by God, as we sometimes do. Yet, he chose faith over feelings, hope over fear. And like Jesus, so can we.
Because, as the poet exclaims, “the compassions of the Lord never fail. They are new every morning. Great is his faithfulness.”