Some of us have been using this Easter
Devotional during Lent called Finding Mercy on the Way of Sorrows[1],
which draws on the Old Testament book of Lamentations.
So as we consider the cross of Christ and Good
Friday together today, I’m going to invite us to spend a little more time in
Lamentations.
Perhaps this is the darkest book of the Bible,
as its name suggests.
A number of writers have suggested that
today’s church might need to recover the lost art of Biblical Christian Lament,
which is perhaps something to think about.
As we consider the book of Lamentations, we
can see here something of sin and its consequences, and how to wrestle with
them.
And we see something of why the cross was
necessary, and what the Lord Jesus endured for us.
We see here something of what we are saved
FROM.
It may not be pleasant to live in Lamentations
for a while, but it might help us to appreciate the deliverance of Easter
Sunday all the more.
The book of Lamentations is set after the fall
of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in 587 BC.
The book is five chapters long.
We’ll read just the first three today.
Each of the first four chapters is an acrostic
poem.
Each verse begins with a successive letter of
the Hebrew alphabet, and then this form breaks down in the final chapter.
Again and again, the book shows us an A to Z
of sorrow and suffering – although not without hope[2].
Much is chaos, but our poet also tries to
bring some order to it, to make some sense of it.
One of the controlling metaphors of the Bible
is to think of the people of God as his bride, whom he loves.
And here the city of Jerusalem is pictured as
a great queen who has become a widow and a slave.
The much-loved holy city of Jerusalem has been
devastated by the Babylonians because of the people’s sin.
Let’s read the first chapter:
1st reading: Lamentations 1
Apparently random meaningless disasters are
hard enough to bear.
But in this case, the poet of Lamentations is
clear that the destruction of Jerusalem is God’s doing.
The LORD has brought her grief because of her
many sins.
And the poet can see that the LORD is
righteous in all this.
We’ve heard descriptions of the hights from
which Jerusalem has fallen – what she was, what she has lost, what she has
become.
She has gone into exile, and that can be a
picture of the human predicament of alienation.
Think of Adam and Eve’s exile from Eden after
their fall, excluded from its blessings, barred from the tree of life, driven
away from the blessing of God’s presence.
Spiritually, our sins separate us from God.
Without Christ, we are in a kind of spiritual
exile.
And Jesus went into exile for us on the cross.
He was separated from the favour of God for us
in our place that we might be brought home.
Jesus went into the far country, that we might
have a place with God again.
The church has traditionally read the book of
Lamentations during Holy Week.
And we might see in Jerusalem’s suffering at
the hand of God, a picture of the suffering of the Lord Jesus.
In particular, think again of v12:
“Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?
Look around and see.
Is any suffering like my suffering that has
been inflicted on me, that the LORD has brought on me in the day of his fierce
anger?”
We might imagine those who passed by the
cross, perhaps indifferent, perhaps scornful, mocking the Lord Jesus for the
disaster which has come upon him.
Matthew tells us that some of the passers by
hurled insults at Jesus and shook their heads. (Matthew 27:38-40).
Jesus’ story seems to end in ruin and his
opponents deride him, rather as Jerusalem was mocked.
All the promises of God, all the hopes seem to
lie in ruins.
Although many people were crucified, there was
no suffering like the suffering of the Lord Jesus: the unique Son of God bore
the sins of all who would put their trust in him.
There was truly no darker hour.
Charles Wesley’s hymn urges us:
All ye that pass by,
To Jesus draw nigh:
To you is it nothing that Jesus should die?
Your ransom and peace,
Your surety He is;
Come, see if there ever was sorrow like His.[3]
This bleak and dark chapter is not without
hope.
The poet still calls out to God for vindication
and deliverance – and there’s hope in that.
“Look, O LORD, on my afflictions, for the
enemy has triumphed.”
Rather than mere despair, there’s prayer.
The poet brings his anguish to God, which is
an act of faith.
The only place to flee from the wrath of God
is to God.
The poet knows that his suffering is just and
from God.
And yet he also cries out to God for salvation
and for judgement on his enemies.
We may think of the Lord Jesus who entrusted
himself to him who judges justly.
He knows that the cross is God’s will for him
and he looks to his Father to bring him through it.
Amazingly, Jesus even prayed for his
persecutors.
And in the midst of his suffering and death,
he looked for the vindication that was to come beyond the grave.
His salvation is not so much from suffering
but through suffering.
The cross will lead to the resurrection.
And although Lamentations doesn’t major on
this, we know that later in the history of Israel there’ll be something of a
return from exile, there’ll be a rebuilding of the city and an ongoing life for
the people of God.
In fact, the Bible will end with a city coming
down out of heaven from God, dressed and prepared like a bride.
God hasn’t given up on his people or his
promises.
The church, the people of God, the City of
God, will be an innumerable multitude gathered from all the nations to live
with God under his blessing.
That hope is the ultimate fulfilment of
Lamentations and of the cross.
* * *
Chapters one and two of Lamentations both
begin with the same question: “How…?”[4]
The focus in chapter one was mainly on “she”,
on Jerusalem.
Now the focus is more particularly on “he”, on
God[5].
Let’s read chapter two:
2nd reading: Lamentations 2
Some of that chapter is quite terrible, isn’t
it?
There is, I’m afraid, little extra to say by
way of relief as yet in this chapter.
The Bible is very realistic about human sin
and suffering.
It doesn’t peddle easy answers or quick fixes.
We are tempted to rush on, to look away, but
the Bible encourages us to wait.
The LORD has become like an enemy to his own
people.
Again and again the chapter speaks of God’s
wrath, his righteous anger, against his own people.
In a way, God’s wrath shows that he cares.
He’s not indifferent to human actions or to
injustice and wrong doing.
God treats us with full seriousness.
We often cry out for justice, and God hears
that cry.
Apathy and indifference would be the real
opposite of love.
Wrath is an expression of love in the face of
evil.
God cares.
And the cross will be God’s answer to all
this:
To sin and wrath and suffering and injustice.
To enmity with God, to exile.
It is while we were Christ’s enemies that he
dies for us.
We need to be reconciled to God.
But not only so:
God needs to be reconciled to us.
God in his holy anger stands opposed to us as
sinners.
God is not just an indulgent grandfather to
whom sin doesn’t matter.
Justice is done at the cross.
Evil has its full weight.
In Jesus God-himself reckons with the full
force and price of sin.
And so that’s the wonder of the gospel:
That God in his love himself provides the
means of reconciliation between us and him.
God’s holy wrath is spent on God himself in
the person of his Son, in the God-Man Jesus Christ.
God appeases and satisfied and spends his own
wrath on himself, that we might know his love.
The price is fully paid.
The way home is open.
Jesus draws us with his arms of love.
He stands ready to welcome us and to restore
us as dearly loved children and heirs.
Will we come to him?
To his embrace?
To his welcome home?
Jesus would say to us, Come, it is finished,
it’s all over, it’s dealt with.
Don’t be afraid.
Don’t worry.
Come!
* * *
We’ve noticed already in chapters one and two
of Lamentations that the point of view or voice of the speaker seems to shift.
Chapter one spoke mainly of “she”, Jerusalem,
and chapter two of “he”, God.
But now we hear someone speaking in the first
person – as the “I” who suffers:
v1, “I am the man who has seen affliction by
the rod of his [God’s] wrath”.
Rather than the whole city, one suffering man
now takes centre stage.
As I’ve suggested, we might see an echo or a
picture – a type as theologians sometimes call it – of the suffering of Christ
here.
Here is the cross foreshadowed in the book’s
longest central chapter[6].
As one man stands at the centre of this book,
so one man stands at the centre of the Scriptures.
So as we reflect on this chapter, let us,
“Behold the man!”, the Lord Jesus Christ (John 19:5).
And you’ll be pleased to hear that some of the
most hopeful parts of this book come in this chapter, including the only words
from the book which most of us probably know, made famous by the hymn.
3rd reading: Lamentations 3
Because of God’s great love for us we are not
consumed, for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning.
Great is your faithfulness.
The cross shows us both the great love and the
great righteousness of God.
The cross is God’s just way of justifying the
unjust.
Justice and mercy meet at the cross.
God is faithful to his people despite our
unfaithfulness.
God keeps his covenant and fulfils his
promises.
All of them are YES and AMEN in Jesus.
So the LORD is good to those who hope in him.
Jesus knew the salvation of God through death
to resurrection.
Though the people of the Old Testament had to
wait to see the fullness of this salvation, as we do, we know that the LORD has
not cast us off for ever.
His love is unfailing.
His love wins.
So God says to us, “Do not fear.”
We can look to him with confidence because he
has redeemed us.
We won’t read chapters 4 and 5 today, but let
me finish our reflections in Lamentations by referring to the very end of the
book.
You might like to look at chapter 5, verse 19.
We know that the LORD reigns for ever.
His throne endures from generation to
generation.
The Lord does not forget his people for ever.
Jesus was forsaken that we might be brought
home.
In God’s mercy, we are not utterly rejected.
He is not angry beyond measure.
It was finished when the Messiah died.
The legal pain was exacted – measure for
measure – the price fully paid.
So let us pray the final prayer of the book of
Lamentations:
Restore us to yourself, O LORD, that we might
return.
V21 actually uses the same word “turn back” or
“return” twice.
So more literally, it’s “turn us to you, O
LORD, and we turn back.”
Cause us to return to you, O LORD, and we
shall return.
As we stand again at the foot of the cross, we
know that God has turned towards us in love.
Let us pray that he would turn our hearts back
to him and that we might live as his faithful hopeful people, even in the face
of suffering.
[1]
Robin Ham (10 Publishing, 2024)
[2]
For more on the poetry and translation of Lamentations, see David Lee’s work
at: http://servicemusic.org.uk/scripture/lamentations/
[3]
Quoted by Ham, p23
[4] As
does chapter 4.
[5]
Ham, p32. Chapter 3 focuses on as “I”, a suffering man. See also p102. Chapter
4 focuses on “they”, the people of the city, and chapter 5 on “we”.
[6]
The above draws on Ham, page 56f.
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