Good Grief?
Lamentations
Pastor Jefferson M. Williams
Chenoa Baptist Church
11-12-2023
Kimmy’s Gone
She called me Jeff and I called her Kimmy. Unless, she was mad at me and she would call me Jefferson and I would respond with Kimberly.
December 12, 2014, 13 days before Christmas, seemed like any other day until I got a call that changed everything.
Kimmy was coming back from a funeral in Fairbury when she lost control of her car, sliding off the road and into a field. Her car flipped multiple times, and because she didn’t have her seatbelt on, she was ejected from the car through the sunroof, killing her instantly.
I drove home and found Maxine distraught and sobbing. We drove to the ER where we met her parents and all stood around her body in shock.
On December 17, I co-led the funeral in a daze. Over 700 hundred people crammed into the church to celebrate the life of one of the most wonderful, ridiculous, Jesus lovers this world has ever known.
We were in the process of trying to sell our house and the Christmas tree was up. That afternoon, Maxine canceled Christmas. It was all too much for her and the thought of Christmas without Kimmy was too much.
Even the next Thanksgiving was tough. On Thanksgiving, Maxine would always make Kimmy her own bowl of mashed potatoes and she would eat them with a wooden spoon. If you tried to take any of the potatoes, she would hit you with the wooden spoon.
The Holiday Blues
Psychologists tell us that the holidays can be depression-producing times for some people.
Dr. Gary Collins writes,
“Christmas…may not be a time of joy and happiness for people who are separated from loved ones, without friends or the money to buy presents, worry about relatives who drink too much at the holiday celebrations, pressured by the demands of the season, or reminded of deaths or other traumatic events that took place in a previous December.”
Suicide rates spike during the holidays. At the psychiatric hospital I worked in during seminary, the assessment office would be overwhelmed during the month of December with people in distress. Christmas is a time of great sadness for many people
But the Church is Different, right?
The holidays are a time of joy and hope. Surely no “good” Christian could be depressed during such a festive time, right?
So, week after week, we walk into the church doors and put on our church faces. We feel guilty and lie and say we are okay when we are falling apart. We play the part, quote the right verses, and swallow our tears.
Enough! Enough, I say! If you can not be real here, where can you be? If you can not struggle here, where can you struggle? The church is a group of fellow humans walking a long, sometimes disheartening, journey toward home together.
Listen to Paul’s heart as he writes to the church in Corinth:
“If one part of the body suffers, all the other parts suffer with it.” (I Corinthians 12:26, NCV)
And to the church in Galatia, he wrote this command:
“Share each others troubles and problems and in this way obey the law of Christ.” (Galatians 6:2, NLT)
We are created to be in community. That’s why it is so important to be in a small group. We serve together, worship together, cry together, and learn together. Let’s do that right now, shall we?
Good Grief?
What was it that I experienced after Kimmy's death? The clinical word for it is “grief.” Grief is our natural reaction to loss. It is highly personal and no two people grieve in exactly the same way.
Recently, I sent out an email and asked this question, “How would you describe grief?”
The answers I received prove the variety of reactions we have to tragedy and trouble. See if any of these sound like your experience.
“A roller coaster ride that you can never quite get off of. You experience the highest and lowest of emotions, and sometimes within minutes and hours of each other. Never knowing when it will take you for a wild ride. It comes with great love for a person… the deeper the connection with them, the more intense the ride of grief.”
“Sometimes like a tsunami when the water goes out to sea and seems to have left and then seemingly out of nowhere, it comes rushing back in and overwhelms you, especially if you're not looking out for it.”
“Wearing a heavy, wet blanket, trudging through mud.”
“A never-ending fog. Or comes in waves. It never goes away but there are days when you feel you can "live" and others where you feel like you're suffocating.”
“Grief is like a lifelong separation from a piece of your own heart like a fraction of your own existence has crossed a barrier the rest of yourself cannot.”
“Getting hit by a stun gun. There is a shock. There is pain you think won’t end. There are involuntary reactions. There is anger at getting hit with it. There is a numbness that takes over, you can move (after a bit of time passes) but the feeling in your body & mind is disconnected from the motions. Even after the effects have passed, things still don’t feel the same and you aren’t quite right for a while. And then you wonder why it happened.”
More than Death
We’ve buried multiple students, friends, and our mothers, my dad and stepmom, and recently Maxine’s stepmom.
It’s important to understand that, although I have been talking about grief in terms of coping with death, grief is much broader than that.
If we define grief as a natural human reaction to loss, then it is normal to grieve quite often. We all experience loss, small and big, and must deal with the resulting emotions.
I’ve often surprised people who come to counsel with me by suggesting they may be grieving. Their first response is, “Nobody died.” But grieving is not always about physical death.
We grieve when:
* Divorce steals our dreams of a happy marriage. In fact, divorce really is about death, the death of a dream. Many people would say that it is actually worse than death because the other person is still around, a reminder of an indescribable loss.
* The loss of a job can cause grief reactions. Being fired, laid off, or downsized can cause grief to raise its ugly head.
* Moving can cause grief, particularly if one feels uprooted from their support system.
* The loss of a pet can be devastating, even to adults.
* Dealing with middle age - a stressful time when many are trying to take care of their parents and their adult children who end up back in the house.
* The disintegration of an important friendship can cause grief.
* Watching your children make choices that you know will hurt them can cause grief.
Being an eyewitness to a tragic event can cause overwhelming sorrow. Each generation has their own grief events:
The attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941
The assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963
The explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986
The 9-11 attacks in 2001
Or, as Jeremiah experienced when he looked out over the ruins of his beloved Jerusalem.
Turn with me to Lamentation (p. 1273).
Prayer.
A Time to Lament
That brings us to the Book of Lamentations. Lamentations has been called the saddest book in the Bible. It is actually a series of five poetic dirges or laments.
For forty years, and through a succession of five different kings, Jeremiah’s message had been the same - repent and turn back to God, or Jerusalem will be attacked and destroyed. (See Jeremiah 21) For forty years, he had been ignored, harassed, and humiliated.
In about 588 BC, Jeremiah found out that King Zedekiah had decided to stop paying tribute to Babylon. He immediately went to the king and not only begged him to continue to honor the treaty but he went a step further and suggested that Zedekiah surrender to Nebuchadnezzar (see Jer 38:17-18).
That way, the coming disaster might be averted. Zedekiah, in a move that showed his arrogance, thumbed his nose at Babylon and refused to pay the tribute (see Jeremiah 52:3).
Nebuchadnezzer’s reaction was swift. He immediately dispatched his army and placed the city of Jerusalem under a blockade. The city held out for a year and a half. These eighteen months turned out to be the darkest time in the history of the great City of David.
Jeremiah encouraged the people to seek refuge inside the walled cities (Jer 4:4). Jerusalem’s population swelled to the point that there were people everywhere.
Although there was an internal water supply, there was only so much food and eventually, it ran out.
On top of that, there was no fuel to cook the food if they could find it.
Eventually, they would use human waste to cook. There was garbage everywhere and no way to keep it clean.
As the months wore on, disease spread like wildfire through the swollen city.
Once people died, there was nowhere to put them and Jeremiah indicates that corpses were thrown over the city walls. It got so bad that the residents resorted to cannibalism (2:17; 4:8-10). It was complete chaos and it was only to get worse.
The siege lasted from the winter months of Zedekiah’s ninth year to the summer of his eleventh year. The last chapter of Jeremiah records the fall of Jerusalem (Jer 52).
Nebuchadnezzer’s army broke through the wall and laid waste to the entire city. Everything was burned to the ground, including the Temple and Solomon’s palace.
They plundered gold, silver, and bronze. They killed indiscriminately, ravaged the young women, and captured Zedekiah. His ten sons were put to death, eyes gouged out, and he was taken to Babylon.
They completely destroyed everything.
As soon as it started it was over. The great Jerusalem lay in ruins, smoldering and desolate.
To this day, the Jews mourn this event. Every August 4th, the Book of Lamentations is read aloud in synagogues around the world. The remembrance ceremony is a time of fasting and confession of sins to commemorate the destruction of the Temple.
Jeremiah’s Grief
Jeremiah had predicted this disaster. He had warned and begged and pleaded. He had witnessed it all firsthand. The unspeakable had happened and he is overwhelmed with sorrow, with grief.
Tradition holds that Jeremiah sat in a cave on a hill that overlooked the city, now called Jeremiah’s grotto.
One of Rembrandt’s most famous paintings was Jeremiah: Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem.
He wrote a series of dirges that would become known as “Lamentations.” As he wrote, tears flowed down his face and onto the parchment. The “weeping prophet” couldn’t believe what he saw.
One of the most moving experiences for me as we visited New York City with a group of students was our trek to “ground zero.” If you have ever been to New York, you know it is a mass of humanity. It’s loud and crowded everywhere you go.
As we approached Ground Zero, the strangest thing happened. It got quiet, very quiet. It’s as if everyone stopped talking all at once. They’ve built ramps that you walk up and are able to see the entire scene.
Once we were there, no one said a word. I looked over the railing into the cavernous hole, and I became overwhelmed with the immensity of the tragedy. There were several people crying near me. We all just stood there, numbed in our collective grief.
This is exactly what is happening with Jeremiah. Well, not exactly. It wasn’t just a couple of city blocks. This was the whole city of David, God’s city. As he looks out over the city he loves, he sees the walls broken down (2:8), the gates destroyed (2:9), and the Temple burned (Jer 52:13). The streets, once bustling with activity are empty. It is a ghost town.
He begins with the Hebrew word for “how.” This is a word commonly used in Hebrew dirges. It can also be translated as “alas” or “oh.” It’s as if Jeremiah let out a big sigh and wrote, “How could this have happened?”
And so begins the lament.
A Process
While it is true that everyone experiences grief in unique and personal ways, there are some common emotions that we all deal with when going through grief. We all experience similar emotions as we try to process loss.
This morning, I want us to look at several of these common grief reactions in light of Jeremiah’s sorrow - shock, depression, and acceptance.
* Shock and Denial
When we experience a loss, our immediate reaction is one of shock. The more devastating the loss, the more intense the shock and denial. Granger Westberg calls this God’s “temporary anesthesia.” It protects us from the full emotional impact of the tragedy by giving us a brief escape from reality.
A person in shock may not even cry and oftentimes is praised for their “strength” through the storm. But when the storm passes, their strong facade crumbles.
I could talk about shock all day but a picture is worth a thousand words. This picture was taken ninety-eight minutes after President Kennedy was assassinated. Jackie’s dress and gloves are covered with her husband’s blood and brain tissue. She said that she wanted to see what they had done to Jack. That is the face of shock. Her entire reality had been shaken and her brain couldn’t process all that was happening.
Jeremiah looks over the devastated city of Jerusalem and experiences shock and denial. We can see it in the first word he uses - “how?”
As you read the first chapter, you can hear the prophet trying to make sense of the scene in front of his eyes. Even though he had told the people this event was coming, he was surprised by the intensity of the horror.
“How lonely sits the city that was once full of people...” (Lam 1:1)
He is astounded by her fall:
“Her fall was astounding; there was no one to comfort her.” (Lam 1:9)
Not only was he in shock, but he gave Jerusalem the voice of a widow in mourning:
“Is it nothing to you who pass, all you who pass by? Look around and see. Is any suffering like my suffering, that was afflicted on me...” (Lam 1:12)
Even other nations had trouble comprehending all that had happened:
“The kings of the earth did not believe, nor did any of the world’s people, that enemies and foes could enter the gates of Jerusalem.” (Lamentations 4:12)
When we are confronted with a loss, our natural defenses take over and protect us for a time. Eventually, the reality of the situation breaks through and the shock wears off.
Then the emotions can go haywire. Anger, fear, guilt, panic, and anxiety can overwhelm a person. But the most common reaction is tears.
Depression and Despair
Shock gives way to anger which leads to the next stage - depression. This is when the tears flow freely.
There can be an overwhelming sense of hopelessness, frustration, bitterness, self-pity, feeling out of control, numbness, irrational fear, and physical symptoms. It is a natural part of the grieving process.
It is times like this when well-meaning Christians say some of the most hurtful things.
I buried my first student in 1997 in Mississippi. Her name was Leanne. When I was at the funeral home with Leanne’s family, one of our deacons became the poster child for how not to comfort grieving people.
As people were huddled together, crying, he would proclaim, “Why are crying? She’s in heaven. Can you imagine the sights she’s seen so far? O praise God. She’s with Jesus. Why all the tears?”
Finally, Maxine told me to get him away from her. I told him that if he didn’t be quiet he would be joining Leanne very quickly! I reminded him that he had a teenage daughter and would feel very different if it was his child in that casket. He got the message and stayed silent.
Paul's advice is right: “Mourn with those who mourn...” (Rom 12:15)
In chapters one and two of Lamentations, Jeremiah keeps his grief at arm's length. But in chapter three, he becomes very personal.
He feels like he is in the dark:
“He has driven me away and made me dwell in darkness rather than light...He has made me dwell in darkness like those long dead.” (Lam 3:2,6)
He feels like God has turned against him:
“Like a bear lying in wait, like a lion in hiding, he dragged me from the path and mangled me and left me without help. He drew His bow and made me the target of His arrows.” (Lam 3:10-11)
He feels physical pain:
“He has made my skin and my flesh grow old and has broken my bones.” (Lam 3:4)
“He has broken my teeth with gravel and has trampled me in the dust.” (Lam 3:16)
When Mitch Robinson was killed in a wreck, I drove 100 mph to Odell to his mother’s house. When I pulled in I hit the mailbox, causing long scratches on my car. I never fixed them. The “scars” on my car represented the scars on my heart.
He feels emotional pain:
“He has filled me with bitterness and sated me with gall.” (Lam 3:15)
He feels trapped:
“He has walled me in so that I can not escape; He has weighed me down with chains.” (Lam 3:7)
He feels like his prayers are bouncing off the ceiling:
“Even when I call out or cry out for help, He shuts out my prayers.” (Lam 3:8)
He feels no peace and his soul is tormented:
“I have been deprived of peace; I have forgotten what prosperity is.”
He feels hopeless:
“My splendor is gone and all that I hoped from the Lord.” (Lam 3:18)
His sadness is overwhelming:
“...my soul is downcast within me.” (Lam 3:20)
Jeremiah lives up to his nickname as the “weeping prophet.” He sits in his cave, overlooking Jerusalem, and falls apart. He writes:
“My eyes fail from weeping, I am in torment within, my heart is poured out on the ground because my people are destroyed.” (Lam 2:11)
Tears are an important part of grieving. God gave us tears for when words are just not enough. As men, we are taught that “big boys don’t cry.” Well, that’s just wrong.
Maxine and I worked with the student ministry at a large church when I was in seminary. We became close to one of the college students there named Jeremy. I got a call one afternoon to come to the emergency room immediately.
Jeremy had offered to take one of our leaders to get his keys,(he had locked himself out of the car), and a friend named Campbell decided to ride along. On the way, Jeremy pulled in front of a cement truck, causing a horrific crash.
We were all waiting out in the lobby. By that time there were about fifty students there. Jeremy was very tall and I was actually standing on a table with my hands on his shoulders when the news came that Campbell had died.
I felt his body go completely rigid and then he fell to the ground, sobbing and screaming, “I killed my best friend.” It probably took eight guys to hold him down. The pain that poured out of this kid was more than any of us could bear. He was beyond devastated.
A group of guys stayed up all night with him praying as he walked through the dark tunnel of unimaginable pain. That night, his tears spoke of sorrow that words could not express.
It’s okay to cry. It’s okay to scream and hit a pillow. It’s okay to question. Grief is a process, sometimes a very slow process. Remember, we “walk through the valley of the shadow of death” (see Psalm 23:7).
Acceptance
There comes a time when the pain is not so sharp and the tears slow down. This does not mean that the pain ever goes away though.
I read an article about John Edwards in which he talked about his sixteen-year-old son who was killed in a car wreck. He described it this way, “It’s as if I had my leg cut off. The initial shock and pain wears off but, every time you look down, you remember something’s missing.”
Some of you know this pain. Even this morning, it feels like something’s missing.
This is the stage where one realizes that it takes two take make a marriage work, that there are other jobs out there, and that there is purpose in all the pain.
In the middle of chapter three, the very middle of the book, Jeremiah abruptly changes directions. The first eighteen verses are full of depression, hopelessness, and mourning. Then we come to the hinge verse of Lamentations:
“Yet this I call to mind, and therefore I will have hope.” (Lam 3:21)
He intentionally concentrates on what he knows to be true. He literally pushes the pain and the sorrow to the side and allows his knowledge of the nature of God to come forward.
Many commentators believe that in the midst of Jeremiah’s anguish, the Lord’s presence surrounded him and overwhelmed him with hope.
When I was at Leanne’s visitation, one of her good friends completely broke down. He just totally lost it. Several students and I surrounded him laid hands on him and prayed over him.
Something happened during that prayer that I still really do not understand. Several of the students said that they experienced what I did but also had trouble describing it. It is as if the Holy Spirit surrounded us and literally wrapped us in a bubble of hope.
His presence was so real that we were all deeply moved. To this day, I’ve never experienced anything like it.
In the midst of our sorrow, God is not on vacation.
He is “close to the broken-hearted and to those who are crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18).
Jeremiah had been focusing on the grief. He turns about and remembers God’s faithfulness.
This is what GrieShare is all about. Three weeks after Kimmy died, we moved to Florida for a job at a church.
One of my responsibilities was to run GriefShare. In the second meeting, I mentioned that I had lost Kimmy less than a month before and a sweet older woman said, “Honey, you don’t need to be leading this, you need to be participating in it. Come sit by me.” For the rest of the thirteen weeks, I sat by my new friend and walked the road of GriefShare with a group of people who understood.
The holidays are hard to go through when you are missing someone you love. That’s why we are having another GriefShare event, “Surviving the Holidays”
[Show video]
What is The Reason for Hope?
Listen to some of the richest words ever written about God:
“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. (Lam 3:22-24)
Jeremiah realizes that, although things are bad, they would surely be worse without God’s great love for us. His mercy triumphs justice and we are not consumed in our sins.
He affirms God’s never-ending concern about him. The word “compassion” means to be moved in the heart out of love for another.” His compassions never fail.
He celebrates the fact that there is always a tomorrow. Many times, people who are grieving need to be reminded that tomorrow’s a new day. A day full of possibilities and hope - they are new every morning.
Corrie Ten Boom, writing on her experiences during her time in a concentration camp during WWII said:
“There is no pit so deep that God’s love is not deeper still.”
* He then writes what would later become the chorus of a great hymn of our faith - Great is Your Faithfulness.” In the midst of utter destruction, Jeremiah declares that God can be trusted and his faithfulness is proved even in the calamity He brought upon Jerusalem:
“The Lord has done what He planned; He has fulfilled His Word which He decreed long ago.” (Lam 2:17)
When the Allies were liberating Europe at the end of World War II, they went house to house searching for survivors. While exploring a barn, they came across a Star of David, and below were scrawled these words:
I believe in the sun...even when it doesn’t shine.
I believe in love...even when it isn’t shown
I believe in God...even when He doesn’t speak
One person described grief as crawling through “broken glass.”
“It hurt so much but I knew the only way out was to keep moving and believe that there was an end to it somehow- to believe that I could last until the beginnings of hope began to grow.”
Grieve Not?
The apostle Paul, writing many years later, gave us a prescription for grieving. In his letter to the church at Thessalonica, he wrote:
“Brothers I don’t want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope.” (I Thes 4:13)
The Bible says it’s right to grieve. It’s okay to express strong emotions and questions. Tears should never be suppressed for fear of not being spiritual. If Jesus Himself sobbed at the death of His friend Lazarus, should we not feel the freedom to cry as well?
That’s why it is important to remember that when you shake your fist toward heaven and scream, “You don’t know how I feel?”
God answers quietly, “Actually, I do.”
Paul writes there should be a difference between Christians and others when they go through the grieving process.
We should always remember that we have a faithful God who will walk through the valley with us. We are never alone. And most importantly, we know that death is not the end.
I will see Kimmy again. Do you know how I know that?
Because, according to Jewish tradition, the name of the hill that Jeremiah sat on as he scanned the city of Jerusalem was named Golgatha. It is the very place where God’s mercy and love were shown in the most amazing, faithful way ever.
Jesus, God’s Son, died on the cross, in your place, to pay the penalty for your sins, so that you could have hope even in the darkest night. (See John 3:16)
At Cedar Lake Camp in Indiana, Kimmy and I took a walk. I explained that I was concerned that there were two Kimmys - a sweet, church kid Kimmy who knew the right things to say and the wild-child Kimmy who lived like the devil Monday through Saturday.
We stopped at a lamppost and I challenged to be one Kimmy and to go all in with Jesus. She bowed and prayed and came home from that camp a different Kimmy. She was still ridiculous and hilarious but she became one of the most outspoken Jesus-lovers I’ve ever known.
And that’s how I know I will see her again. We will eat mashed potatoes together and
Do you know that there can be peace even in the midst of great pain?
Isaiah, speaking prophetically about the Messiah, wrote:
“He will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all the faces...” (Isaiah 25:8)
[Read the last page of the Last Battle]
Ending Video: A Different Kind of Christmas by Mark Shultz
