This week we have watched scenes
on our news programs that should cause us sorrow. Week after week we have been hearing about
the Corona virus and the death that it is bringing in our world. Now this recurring news cycle has been
interrupted by events in America. There
we see racial injustice and civil disorder.
What is going on? Why are these
things happening? How should we respond?
We watch the news in order to
know how to pray (Mark Dever). We also
watch the news in order to know how to lament.
In a sense lament is about being real with God, asking God difficult
questions and even bringing him our complaints.
We see lament right through out the book of Psalms and in this amazing
little book that we are going to study over the next few weeks.
Background—a people who underestimated the holiness of God
The book of Lamentations has a
particular historical context. God had
promised Abraham’s people a land—the land of Canaan. But the book of Deuteronomy warned them that
if they lived in rebellion against God they would be kicked out of this
land.
God patiently persisted with them
as they turned to the idols of that land and did what was evil in his
sight. After the reign of King Solomon,
the nation was divided in two. The
northern kingdom, called Israel, didn’t listen to God and so they were
eventually conquered by the Assyrians.
The southern kingdom, called Judah, didn’t learn from this. They continue to ignore God. The prophet Jeremiah called them back to God,
but they would not listen. Instead, they
listened to false prophets who said that God would not judge them. After all their capital was Jerusalem, the
home of the temple. God would not allow
that city to be destroyed. Like so many
people today, they underestimated the holiness of God. They would not accept the idea of a day of
judgement.
That day of judgement came. The Babylonians arrived. They were the super-power of that time. For three years the Babylonians surrounded
the city as the people starved to death.
Eventually the walls broke, and the city was sacked. The people were made slaves and exiles. The temple was now a smouldering heap of
ruins.
Now Jeremiah thinks about what he
is seeing in his world. He sees the
evidence of sin and the destruction it brings.
He sees devastation and ruin and it breaks his hearts. He cries out about the loneliness of
suffering, the need for God to make things right and then he repents of his own
sin.
Suffering is lonely
‘How deserted lies the city, once
so full of people. How like a widow is
she, who was great among the nations!
She who was queen among the provinces has now become a slave’ (1:1).
There is a dreadful loneliness in
this first chapter of Lamentations. The
words ‘no one’ are repeated twenty-two times in its twenty-two verses. There is no one coming to comfort them. There is no one coming to their rescue. They feel abandoned by God.
That is a feeling that many of us
have experienced. In our grief and pain,
we can feel terribly lonely. When we
need God most, he can feel most absent.
The Psalms give us permission to cry out with King David, ‘My God, my
God why have you forsaken me?’ (Psalm 22:1).
Don’t forget that Jesus asked the
same question from the cross. He
experienced what it was like to be alone in suffering so that we might never
truly be alone in our suffering. To
those who trust in him, he promises, ‘I will be with you always, to the very
end of the age.’ We may feel alone, but
we never are forsaken. The most
important thing that we can pray for our suffering friends is that they would
know God and that the Holy Spirit would enable them to feel his love.
We need God to make things good
Why do we live in a word of
viruses and violence?
We live in a world of viruses and
violence because of human sin. There was
no Corona virus in the Garden of Eden.
There was no violence there. It
was only after humankind had been expelled from that garden that we read of the
murder of Abel by his brother Cain.
Hatred has been in the human heart ever since.
The events that surround the book
of Lamentations echo the removal from Eden. In the Garden of Eden God’s people were in
God’s place. They rebelled against God
and they were expelled. The result was
suffering and death. Before the
Babylonians arrived to destroy Jerusalem, God’s people were in God’s
place. They rebelled against God and they
were expelled. The result was suffering
and death.
Read through the opening chapter
of Lamentations and you will hear about distress, mourning, desolation, bitter
anguish, and grief. Why did this
happen? The answer to that question is dreadful. In the middle of verse five we read, ‘the
LORD has brought her grief because of her many sins’ (5b). This was an act of God’s judgement.
Sometimes we suffer as a direct
consequence of our sin, but often the relationship between suffering and sin is
an indirect one. Sin removed us from
Eden. Outside Eden is a world of
suffering and death. We all get sick and
die. Those who have died of the Corona
virus were no worse than anyone else, but their deaths are a reminder that we
are mortal. One day we will all face the
judge of this world.
God has done something to make
everything good again. The old Jerusalem
was destroyed, but there is the promise of a new Jerusalem. That new Jerusalem
will accompany the return of our Lord.
In that new Jerusalem there will be no racial injustice. Instead, there will be a multitude too great
to number drawn from every nation, tribe, people and language united in worship
of the Father and the Son (Revelation 7:9).
There will be no Corona virus or cancer, for death and mourning and pain
will have passed away. We will never
feel lonely, for God’s dwelling pace will be with his people (Revelation
21:1-4).
Watch the news and repent
So, Jeremiah looked at his world
and lamented. But he didn’t just
identify a problem out there. He saw a
problem within himself. He brings his
lament home and confesses his own guilt.
‘See, LORD, how distressed I am!
I am torn within, and in my heart, I am disturbed, for I have been most
rebellious. Outside the sword bereaves;
inside there is only death’ (20).
We loom at our news and we have
to bring it home.
It is not just in America that we
see prejudice and hatred. It is in our
land too. We have a history of hatred
between those from a cultural Protestant and Catholic background. Evil has been done but we have been slow to
forgive. We have failed the Biblical
injunction to welcome the migrant, and our system of direct provision has often
lacked compassion. The travelling community
have been much discriminated against.
The problem lies even closer to
home. The Bible teaches us that the root
of every kind of evil lies in the soil of our own hearts. We deny God’s word if we claim that we have
always loved our neighbours as ourselves.
We have despised people in our hearts, assassinated them with our words
and withheld our compassion from them.
The gospel frees us to admit our own evil, for while our hearts are
wicked, God’s grace is greater than our hearts.
Jesus died for my acts of injustice, my bigotry to those who are
different than me and my reluctance to forgive.
We look at the violence on our news and admit, ‘I too have been most
rebellious.’
Conclusion—lament and hope
Don’t stop watching the
news. It teaches us how to pray and how
to lament. We should be praying for the
victims of injustice and we also pray for those who have committed the
injustice. We look forward to Jesus’
perfect day of justice and we thank him that he has dealt with the injustice we
have committed. We remember our own sin,
but don’t despair because we are forgiven and Christ now dwells within us,
transforming us by his presence. There
will always be violence in this world by we look forward to an eternal time of
peace. We see the hatred and know that
people need to grasp the love of Christ.
We believe that what this
hate-filled world needs more than anything else is the good news of Jesus and
the transforming presence of the Holy Spirit.
‘Lord God enable us to speak to a
sinful world with the humility of forgiven sinners, the love of those who have
encountered Jesus and the hope of those who seek your will to be done on earth
as it is in heaven.’
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