Lessons from Lamentations
Lamentations 3:1-3; 19-24; 40-42
For the past couple of weeks, we have been inundated with reports of the floods in the Midwest. The reports about Iowa are of special interest to Sue & me, since we come from there, so we perked up our ears when we heard names of places like:
• Iowa City where the Iowa River flooded some familiar U of I buildings such as Hancher Auditorium where we sometimes enjoyed theatre productions;
• Columbus Junction, a small town we know at the junction of the Iowa River and Cedar River, where a railroad bridge collapsed dropping the engine and several railroad cars 20 feet into the water;
• Mediapolis where a levee on the Iowa River broke and farm families had to leave everything and get out quickly;
• And then Hannibal, MO, Mark Twin’s home town which we have visited several times. When I was a teenager, I helped with a disaster clean-up crew after the Mississippi flooded.
It seems like our nation is getting hammered with unprecedented floods, tornadoes, and destructive fires. The images of massive flooding and forest fires make us shudder. These events cause us to wonder whose fault it is that rivers overflow like this? Did the Army Corp of Engineers fail to do their work properly? Is God unleashing all this misery? Should we blame ourselves for not paying more attention to the way we lives?
As usual, before going on vacation, we checked out several books from the library. Oddly enough, three out of the four had to do with calamities and suffering.
One was written by a Japanese woman, Toyo Suyemoto, about the experiences of her family out west during WWII when hundreds of Japanese people had to give up their jobs and properties to be hauled to remote areas in Calif., Utah, & Ark., where they were incarcerated for three years. It is hard to believe the hardships and indignities they suffered just because they were Japanese, many of whom were born here. In Suyemoto’s poetry I found these two short verses:
1. Grief chokes in my throat.
I cannot speak; tomorrow
Stretches far away.
2. Doubt haunts me: I ask,
Will there be another spring
To justify breath?
The book makes you wonder how one can find the strength to bear up in the midst of such disregard for human dignity. (I call to remembrance. 2007)
Another book was one I listened to on tape titled Nine Minutes Twenty Seconds about a commuter plane, Flight 529, that crashed in a Georgia hayfield in the late 90s because of a hairline crack in one of its propellers. The book provides a second-by-second countdown of the crash and then the excruciating, blow-by-blow account of the accident as the plane broke apart and about 30 people, most of whom survived, tried to escape through tangled wreckage, fire and smoke. Several died and others experienced excruciating pain and agony. Even though the propeller company accepted all responsibility, the descriptions of the raw physical and emotional pain of the victims are unforgettable.
The third book was written by a Youth for Christ leader in Sri Lanka about how to embrace suffering when ministering to the urban poor. The author has been in that ministry since 1976. This book helps to understand how suffering can bring us closer to God. He writes some thought-provoking words. For example, “If suffering helps us get closer to Jesus and be more effective in his service, then we will welcome it with joy.” (Ajith Fernando, The Call to Joy & Pain. 2007)
And then, it was time to prepare this message from the book of Lamentations, a book based on calamity and suffering. Take a look at the summary in your bulletin.
There are two significant events in Jewish history that Jews commemorate. Both influenced their understanding of God. Both impacted their understanding of themselves. One is the Exodus, when God, in his mighty power, miraculously delivered them from a life of slavery in Egypt after 400 years and entered into a covenant with them that called them to faithful obedience. As Deut. 28 says, as long as they kept that covenant, God would protect them and provide for them. The Exodus stands at the center of their religious observance because who but God could have accomplished that? So, to this day, Jews observe the Passover to remember God’s salvation.
The second watershed event took place in 586 B.C. when the nation Babylon attacked what was left of Israel, destroyed Jerusalem, and took thousands of Jews captive. And for 70 years many of those Jews lived in Exile. Prophets had warned that such destruction would come upon them if they allowed their sins to continue. The writer of Lamentations pours out his grief over this sad chapter in their history. Open your Bibles to Lamentations.
1. Run your eyes down Chapter 1. How many verses? Chapter 2? Chapter 4? Chapter 5? Doesn’t that make you wonder? How many consonants are there in the Hebrew alphabet? This style of writing is called an acrostic – beginning the first verse with A, the second with B, etc. Actually, Chapter 3 is an acrostic even though it doesn’t have 22 verses and Chapter 5 is not an acrostic even though it does have 22 verses. Writers sometimes wrote poetry this way so it would be easier to memorize. So, we see that this is poetry.
2. Take a look at the first sentence. “How lonely sits the city that once was full of people!” Take a moment to let this image sink in. This is only one image to describe the impact of the loss of Jerusalem. Can you imagine this capital city bustling with activity, people going about their business, buying and selling, eating and drinking and then seeing it empty of people as they are yanked out by a foreign nation and taken into exile? Imagine what Washington DC would be like. It is hard for us to fathom the significance this city had for the Jews back then. When is a city not a city anymore? When no one lives there. This city had a glorious past, but no present or future. The city was dead. The nation had suffered an irreversible blow. Then, so we don’t forget the people, we see the word widow, one who had lost her protector, provider, and lover. The husband she lost was the Lord himself. In this chapter, we begin the funeral of a nation and this verse is the first line of a funeral dirge, a lament, a cry of sorrow. Lamentations contains five funeral dirges to commemorate the destruction of Jerusalem. The Jews still read the book of Lamentations in their worship every year in the middle of July. So our timing is about right.
We can only look at some highlights of this book. If you want to explore it further, I suggest you sit down and meditate on these verses and substitute the destruction of the twin-towers on 9-11 in the place of Jerusalem. That calamity was almost as heart-wrenching to this nation as the destruction of Jerusalem was to the Jews. When you do that, ask yourself if the moral and spiritual direction our own nation is headed is pleasing to God. The headlines we read these days are not reassuring as we learn of corruption and perversion of all kinds at all levels of society. What judgment is God bringing on this nation? Intercessors for America is so concerned they are calling a 12-hour prayer meeting in Washington on Aug. 16. Thousands are expected to gather.
The book of Lamentations brings to us some important lessons and we want to look at those now.
1. Use today’s opportunities to prepare for tomorrow. Last Wednesday evening we marked the number of times the phrase in v. 2 “no one to comfort her” appears in chapter 1. Think of the grief, tears, and sleepless nights, not just because of the physical loss, but because they had lost the opportunity to reconcile themselves with God. Through bitter tears, they recognized it was now too late. V. 9 says, “She took no thought of her future.” Warnings from the prophets went unheeded. No one paid attention.
In a news interview, I heard one property owner say that he did not buy flood insurance because he had been told he didn’t need to worry. Big floods only happen every 500 years or so. Today people insure themselves against all kinds of calamities, but they fail to insure their souls against the one thing that most certainly will happen. Everyone will meet God face to face some day. Many people fail to make provisions for their eternal destiny. I hope you are not one of those.
2. Prepare for God’s judgment. All of us know about God’s love. We sing about it. We read about it. We talk about it. Most of you know the key verse of the Bible that begins “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.” And it is important that everyone finds out that God really does love them.
But there is another side of God that we don’t talk about much. That is his anger. Chapter. 2 reminds us of what happens when God withdraws his protection. In v. 3 we read that “he has withdrawn his right hand from them.” And when God takes his protection away, his people can fall into terrible circumstances. The fall of Jerusalem is one such example. Look down the verses of Chapter 2 and see how many verses begin with “the Lord” or “He”as the grammatical subject. We get the picture that not only is God a warrior who fights for his people, but in his anger fights against them. Look at v.1. Look at v.4 “He has bent his bow like an enemy.”
Back in 1741, Jonathan Edwards delivered one of the most famous sermons in U.S. history titled “Sinners in the hands of an angry God.” I hope it is still required reading in American literature courses and that you high school students have read it. It is said that Edwards delivered the sermon in a monotone voice so the words, not his voice, would impact his listeners. Listen to a few sentences.
The wrath of God is like great waters that are dammed for the present; they increase more and more, and rise higher and higher, till an outlet is given; and the longer the stream is stopped, the more rapid and mighty is its course, when once it is let loose… The floods of God’s vengeance have been withheld; but your guilt in the mean time is constantly increasing, and you are every day treasuring up more wrath; the waters are constantly rising, and waxing more and more mighty; and there is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, that holds the waters back, that are unwilling to be stopped, and press hard to go forward. If God should only withdraw his hand from the flood-gate, it would immediately fly open, and the fiery floods of the fierceness and wrath of God, would rush forth with inconceivable fury, and would come upon you with omnipotent power; and if your strength were ten thousand times greater than it is, .. it would be nothing to withstand or endure it.
O sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in: it is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hand of that God. You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe it, and burn it asunder. And you have nothing to lay hold of to save yourself, nothing to keep off the flames of wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you ever have done, to induce God to spare you one moment.
Therefore, let every one that is out of Christ, now awake and fly from the wrath to come. Let every one fly out of Sodom: "Haste and escape for your lives, look not behind you, escape to the mountain, lest you be consumed."
That sermon was the beginning of the Great spiritual Awakening in which many people repented and committed themselves to Christ. In Lamentations, the prophet Jeremiah reminds us that it is a serious thing to fall under God’s judgment.
3. Face your own sin. Sometimes people who read the Bible for the first time are surprised at how much failure and sin is described in it. Even people we might regard as saints like Abraham and David and Peter and Paul have feet made of clay. The Scriptures do not gloss over our sinful nature.
The prophet Jeremiah, now weeping over the destruction of this great and mighty city Jerusalem, recognizes his sin and the sin of his people. In 3:8 we read “Though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer.” Have you ever had trouble praying because you knew you had sinned? That is what Jeremiah is writing about. He identifies with the sin of Jerusalem. In 5:7, he speaks of the sins of his ancestors. In 4:7 we see that even the prophets and the priests have sinned. As a result of their sin these people who once were proud and productive have become humiliated (5:11-16) Everyone is guilty. As Paul says in Romans 3:23 “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
Only after you begin to recognize your sin and disobedience to God can you receive healing. The prophet begins to pray anew. In 3:22 he remembers God’s love and compassion. Every day God has something good for his people. “Great is your faithfulness” he says in V.23.
He recognizes the importance of reflection, repentance, and restoration. V.40-42. Have you gotten to this point in your journey toward faith?
4. Look forward to God’s renewing work. By the time we get to the last words of this funeral dirge, we see that God rules our world. He has not gone on vacation nor has he gone away. Our only hope is that sin is not the last word. See V.19. Jeremiah’s attention is now focused on God. V.21. At this point we realize that unless God renews us, there will be no renewal. Because of what God has done we can now turn our attention toward the future and to what God still wants to do in us and through us. As most of you know, this congregation has been engaged in a spiritual renewal process for the past several months. Allow God to work in your life and restore you.
