Lamentations 3:19-26
God’s Unfailing Faithfulness
Have you ever had tragedy strike? Some of you have lost a loved one, a devastating blow for sure. Some may have lost a lot of money in the stock market. I know some who have lost a child or gone through a hurtful divorce or lost a job or experienced a reversal in their health. And as a nation, we remember 9/11—thousands of lives lost in a single day—along with other national tragedies. In a time of crisis, how will we react to God? How will our faith be affected? How will we go on?
The book of Lamentations is named after the word, “lament,” which means to “cry out loudly.” A lament is a cry out to God. Many of the psalms are laments, as are portions of practically every book of prophecy. But Lamentations is the only book of the Bible made up entirely of laments.
And these laments weren’t just hastily jotted down. We know by their careful poetic composition. Chapters 1, 2, and 4 contain laments of 22 verses each, with each verse beginning with a different consecutive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Our chapter today, chapter 3, has 66 verses, because each set of three verses begins with the same consecutive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. For instance, the first three verses all begin with an “aleph,” our equivalent of an “A.” Then, the next three lines begin with a “Bet,” our equivalent of a “B”, and so forth. Alliteration helped people memorize scripture more easily, since few copies existed. So while this book is full of heavy emotion, it was carefully composed.
Lamentations doesn’t list an author, although most scholars believe it was written by the prophet Jeremiah, based on comments he makes in the book bearing his name. Jeremiah prophesied for over 40 years that if God’s people did not repent, God would allow foreign armies to conquer the land. And that is exactly what happened. In 586 BC, King Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian army came swooping in and conquered Jerusalem. It was a terrible time. The Babylonians destroyed homes, businesses, and the Temple itself. People starved. Pregnant women even resorted to cannibalism to survive. Jeremiah wrote Lamentations to help surviving Jews process the tragedy and know God was still there for them. Orthodox Jews still read the book annually on the anniversary of the fall of the Temple. And Catholics read it during the last three days of Holy Week.
It is hard for us to imagine, because we don’t live in a theocracy, a country where God is our king. But try to imagine that, not only is your homeland invaded, your house and workplace destroyed, but also your holiest site. Everything in your life is now gone or turned on its head. And any surviving citizens are enslaved by the conquering armies, most taken off to foreign lands. How the Jewish people must have mourned, not only for themselves but also for their nation!
Let us take a moment to mourn with Jeremiah and his people. We’re skipping over a lot of the sad parts, but listen to the pain of Jeremiah’s lament in verses 19 and 20: “I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me.” When we have been through a crisis, a tragedy, how often do we play it over and over again in our minds, trying to make sense of it, hoping for a different outcome? And yet all we do is cause our soul to be further and further downcast, falling into that sinking quicksand of depression, the grey fog, the dark night of the soul.
Verse 21 changes everything with the little word, “yet.” Sometimes it’s the tiny words in scripture that matter the most. “Yet” tells us something can change. “Yet” says these old familiar refrains can develop into something better. The sorrows of the night can give way to joys in the morning. After sunset comes the sunrise. After Crucifixion Friday and Silent Saturday comes Resurrection Sunday. Like the famous preacher said, “It may be Friday, but Sunday’s a coming!”
Jeremiah chooses to remember. And in making such a choice, he finds hope. Verse 21: “Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope.” What do you call to mind, Jeremiah? He remembers five things scattered over the next few verses. Perhaps he counts them off on his fingers:
1) “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed.” That word for “love” is in the plural. A better translation is “loving kindnesses” or “mercies.” The Hebrew word “hesed” encompasses God’s love, grace, mercy, goodness, forgiveness, truth, compassion, and faithfulness, all wrapped up in one. The word appears about 250 times across the Old Testament. You see, no matter how harsh God’s punishments, God’s love is always greater.
2) “For his compassions never fail.” All else may fail, but not God’s compassions. God loves you and there is nothing you can do about it! God has great compassionate love for us.
3) “They are new every morning.” Every day is a new day of hope with God. The morning brings a fresh start, a new beginning. This verse reminds me of Psalm 30:5, Weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.
4) “Great is your faithfulness.” Jeremiah gets so excited here that he talks directly to God! Our own faithfulness waivers at times, until we choose like Jeremiah to remember. But God’s faithfulness never waivers. God always keeps his promises. And last but not least,
5) “The Lord is my portion.” This word “portion” dates back to the assignment of land to the twelve tribes of Israel. The tribe of priests and Levites didn’t get any land, because God told them, “You don’t need that. I’ll be your portion” (see Numbers 18:20). Here Jeremiah tells his people, “You may have lost your land, your homes, your jobs, your Temple. But don’t worry about it. God will be your portion. And ultimately, what else do you need?”
So what is our role when hard times strike? Jeremiah concludes at the end of verse 24, “Therefore I will wait for him.” And then he talks about how God is good to those who wait quietly for God’s salvation. I don’t know about you, but I’m generally not a good waiter. But waiting doesn’t have to be passive or fatalistic: “Guess I’ll just wait and see if God can salvage this one!” No, God calls us to do things in the waiting time. He calls us to pray, to read his word, to offer encouragement to others who are suffering, to watch for what God may be up to behind the suffering, to do the last thing God gave us to do. There is a lot to do if we are faithful to doing it. And it all helps us discover what God wants us to learn through the calamity. For truly, God never wastes a hurt.
Beth Moore writes, “Faith is not believing in my own unshakable belief. Faith is believing an unshakable God when everything in me trembles and quakes.” Listen, it’s not “if” you have a bad day, but “when.” We all have bad days. Sometimes we have bad weeks, or bad months, or even bad years. Yet, God is still on the throne. God still loves us with his hesed, his loving kindnesses that are all around us. Our part is to trust him, to wait on him, to repent and turn back to him, to bring our pain and suffering to him. God will get us through. Let us pray:
Great is thy faithfulness, O Lord. Help us to remember that, not only when things are going well, but also when they are not. Help us to believe in you during times of blessing and cursing, during times of plenty and times of drought. May we say with Job: “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” We pray this in the name of Jesus, our Savior, amen.
Hymn - “Great is Thy Faithfulness”
As we prepare for Holy Communion, do you remember the setting for the first Communion? Jesus was just moments away from betrayal, arrest, torture, and death by crucifixion, then burial into a cave, with a rock set into place. Can you imagine the calamity his disciples must have felt? Yet I wonder if they thought back to his words, “This is my body, given for you. This is my blood shed for you.” Perhaps some of them thought about his teaching moments when he would patiently explain, over and over, “I must die, but I will be raised up on the third day.” Maybe, in their dark night of the soul, there remained just a glimmer of hope that somehow God would remain faithful, that he would keep his promises.
The Lord’s Supper reminds us that God indeed is faithful. The risen Jesus says, “Take this to remember me.” The Apostle Paul urges us to use the Supper to remember Jesus’ death but also to remember his return. Jesus is coming again to make all things right, to take those who have given their lives to him, to bring us home to our true home, a place with many rooms added onto the Father’s house itself. We will be with our Heavenly Father as well as with our Savior, no more tears, no more sadness, no more sin, no more disappointment, living fully and freely with them and each other. Let us remember that as we take the elements this morning...
