Category: Lamentations

“To be continued.” How many of us dreaded those three little words at the end of a television show? Those words often meant waiting a whole week and, possibly, an entire summer to learn what happened next. We dislike unresolved conflict so much we will binge entire seasons of shows at once. Lack of resolution is uncomfortable. We don’t like being uncomfortable.

Chapter 5 closes the Book of Lamentations. It is a communal cry of pain and pleading. This chapter is hard to read. It’s difficult to hear details of human suffering. We want a happy ending. In the absence of that, we will settle for any ending. Where is the next episode? If we’re seeking a conclusion neatly tying Israel’s pain to God’s relief, we are sorely disappointed at the end of the book.

The first four chapters of Lamentations follow a strict structure. The structure infuses order and guidance to the verses like a series of locks and gates controlling a canal. Then Chapter 5 breaks the floodgates open! The writer lists the legacy of Israel’s sins for every member of the community, one after another, without pause or pattern. Lyrical language and descriptive metaphors are thrown aside for cold facts detailing the struggling state of daily life for God’s people. Verses 15 and 16 bring the record of tribulations to end, summarized with “Woe to us, for we have sinned.” We almost hear the writer take a long, slow, sobbing sigh before proceeding.

When we pour out our pain and plead to God, we want a resolution. We dread the “To be continued ….” response. Instead, we want the “binge-watching” version of our lives so we can find out what happens.

So why does God make us wait? Isaiah 30:18 gives us a clue:

“Therefore the Lord longs to be gracious to you,

And therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you.

For the Lord is a God of justice;

How blessed are all those who long for Him.”

God longs to bestow His free and unmerited favor on us through salvation. This is why He waits. We are blessed through the process of waiting. Maybe Lamentations, especially this chapter, is hard to read because we relate to the waiting and it makes us uncomfortable. But, maybe God is blessing us through the waiting.

Lamentations chapter four is a continued poetic reflection over the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem and Jerusalem’s soon after exile. It is rich with contrasts of Jerusalem from when it was a place that sought to honor God before the siege, versus the sins that brought God’s judgment on Jerusalem in the form of the Babylonian siege. Although the people of God once lived out their identity of being precious and valuable, they allowed for sin to cover them and overtake their identity as God’s chosen. As a consequence of their evil there was immense cruelty, hunger, and judgment. Throughout this chapter it is evident that the high were brought low on account of their sins, and that all were judged because all had committed evil.

Verse 13 is pivotal to understanding the reason behind the Lord’s judgment. God is slow to anger (Psalm 103:8), and when He does unveil His wrath it is not spontaneous and unintentional but a divine judgment on evil. This chapter explained that the unrepented sins of the people of Jerusalem were the cause of His judgment, and the author specifically noted the sins of the priests and prophets. God is Just, and does not let sin go unpunished then or now. He does not sit back passively and ignore evil being done, but addresses it and judges it impartially (Romans 2:11). 

We often desire for the Lord to punish evil, but request that He stops punishing sin when it comes to us. That would not be completely just though, so He promises to punish all evil (which includes ours). While in one hand we hold God’s perfect justice, in the other we hold God’s perfect love. God is love (1 John 4:16), and seeks to be in community with His children then and now. He was faithful to His covenant in the Old Testament which promised to love Israel and bring Jesus as Savior, and offers a covenant to all that our sins can be paid for through Jesus’ perfect life, sacrificial death, and glorious resurrection. God’s sending of His only son Jesus is the ultimate act of His love (John 3:16). 

The Holy Spirit preserved this book to teach human’s capacity for evil and God’s just judgment. It also teaches human’s ability to lament over their sin, confess their sins, and find God’s loving forgiveness (1 John 1:9). God is seen as both justice and love, and neither could be true without the other. The Lord’s judgment of punishing evil is complete through His love of sending Jesus to be punished in place of those who believe!

Things aren’t going well for Jeremiah. As Jeremiah surveys Jerusalem in the wake of Babylon’s conquest, he personalizes the suffering of the city by applying it to his own life. What God has done to Israel, Jeremiah considers done to himself, too. At the crux of these verses are questions we still struggle to answer today. How do we find the strength to overcome life’s most difficult moments? Where do we turn when hope seems like nothing more than wishful thinking?

While Jeremiah has spent the first two and a half chapters decrying the state of a war-torn and joyless land, he eventually finds his anchor in the storm. The shift comes in verses 21-23. “Yet this I keep in mind: 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.”

Let’s think more about these verses as we grow in the Lord today. Feel free to read through each phrase slowly and carefully, asking God to share his heart with you as you read.

• • Yet this I keep in mind: God wants us to keep in mind who he is and what he is doing all the time. It is easy to let our minds be filled with ideas from other people or ourselves.

• Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed: His love will save us from evil. No matter how difficult our scenario appears to be, we will not be overtaken. 

• His compassions never fail: He is with us and cares for us.

• They are new every morning: God’s love and compassion are consistent. 

• Great is your faithfulness: God’s faithfulness is stronger than our own or others around us. 

Jeremiah’s words give us hope today. In the midst of suffering—whether it is communal or personal—we need an anchor to hold on to when the storm seems to be pulling our boat out to sea. God is our anchor. We should cling to him. Let us keep His words in our mind, holding on to hope, filled with his love and admiring his faithfulness.

The text here is a continuation of Jeremiah’s expression of raw emotion. It is full of Jeremiah expressing the anger of God that is being expressed towards the city of Jerusalem. God has prepared His bow like an enemy. It doesn’t feel good to be on the other side of God’s anger, particularly when it is because of our unrepentant sin. God’s wrath is powerful and strong, but how do we grapple with this? How can we believe that our God, the King of Kings, is also recognized as a God of Anger in this passage?

This isn’t a matter of Old Testament God being angry and New Testament Jesus making it better—He is the same God. In seeing multiple sides of God, we are able to see the fullness of God. He is not partial in anything. Knowing of God’s anger over Jerusalem makes the fact that He empathizes with our pain so much greater. When we hurt and we say to others, “He hurts with us,” it feels a lot deeper. While in this passage we learn about God’s wrath for Jerusalem, we also learn His heart hurts deeply when we sin and turn from Him. He wants us near Him.

On the other hand, we can empathize with Jeremiah as he expresses his lack of knowledge in comforting the people. Jeremiah talks about how Jerusalem is without comfort, and he mentions how he doesn’t know how to comfort them. There are so many times where comforting someone else is hard because we don’t understand what this person is going through. In these moments, we can listen rather than understand. By the end of the chapter, Israel gets to respond. Jeremiah has to be willing to listen, just as we have to listen to others in their pain.

Lamentations 1 portrays the sorrow and anguish of a man defeated. The common assumption is that Jeremiah was the likely author of this book. He surrendered his life to speak out against a regime that hated him and a people that shunned him. Yet as he grieves and laments, something is missing. 

As we read through the text, the question becomes obvious: Where is the bitterness, the righteous indignation, the self-satisfied appearance of justice that seems to mark so much of our own experience? In today’s culture, which seems to be veering wildly into the consequences of ungodliness, what marks many believers is anger and disgust. What fills many social media posts are words of gleeful judgment and delight when our cultural foes meet their comeuppance. 

Too often, our hope for this godless culture is its destruction rather than its repentance. As Christians, we are in the position of Jeremiah, a voice of God’s love towards an obstinate people. And yet, how often have we replaced godly lament for self-righteous angst? How much does our heart mirror Jeremiah’s distraught sorrow? How much do we delight instead of distress when we are proven right? Jeremiah was daily driven deeper into prayer for, not against, his countrymen. 

He writes in Lamentations 1:9, “Look, Lord, on my affliction, for the enemy has triumphed.” Jeremiah suffers together with the people of Jerusalem, crying out to God on their behalf. His heart was always and forever for their repentance and redemption. Are we able to say the same?