Today's Reading:

Lamentations 1
Lamentations 2
Lamentations 3:1-36

​In the book of Lamentations, the author painted a dark scene to show the turmoil that the people were living in, so dark it can hurt our own hearts to read. Physically, the people’s eyes were dry from crying, stomachs churned in turmoil, and bile poured out. Starving infants clung to their mothers, begging for food. The water, bread, and wine which were to be the sustenance of life were gone. The children cried and fainted in the streets. Mothers held their little ones while they wasted away. It was so bad that the mothers, in their worst moments, were driven to cannibalism, where they ate their own children they had once rocked.

The false prophets were not truly from the Lord. They only gave the people the words they wanted to hear. The true prophets were murdered right in the Temple. Where was God in this darkness? The people had turned from God for so long that when judgment finally came, it seemed as though God Himself had gone quiet. God did not storm out. He left slowly, first to above the cherubim, then to the threshold, to the east gate, then to the Mount of Olives. Each point was a pause in His reluctant step. Being that the author was able to write the book and pour out his grief meant that God was not gone, and He had not abandoned them forever. The women in Lamentations who held the starving children and asked where God was echoed the cries from Psalm 22:1 and Matthew 27:46: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” At the cross, God held the suffering that happened across the world and through His son, He answered, I am here. Even in this.

 

The once large city of Jerusalem had become a slave, and the people of Judah had gone into exile. There was no rest. The roads leading to Zion mourned because no one came to the Lord's festivals anymore. In 586 BC, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon finished his siege of Jerusalem. The famine inside the city was so severe that some people resorted to cannibalism. Solomon’s Temple was burned, and the elite of the land were taken away to Babylon.

Most scholars believe Jeremiah wrote the book of Lamentations. Whether or not he was the author, it was clear the writer lived through these days. The first two chapters are written as single acrostics; each of the 22 verses begins with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet (though this pattern does not carry over into English). The book of Lamentations weeps for the Israelites. Judgment was coming, and he watched the glory leave the temple.

The people had lost the “rest” God had promised them in the Promised Land. The religious calendar was no longer even kept. The priests and the women suffered the most during the famine, while their enemies seemed to prosper, only because God had allowed it. Lamentations 1:6 was a picture of the princes of Jerusalem like deer that could find no pasture, the complete opposite of the green pastures and rest that the Lord provided as the shepherd described in Psalm 23.

Jerusalem had sinned and become filthy, with her shame exposed for all to see. The uncleanliness clung to her skirts (like menstrual impurity, as a vivid picture of moral failure). The holy Temple itself had been defiled and no longer met the purity standards from the Torah (the first five books of the Bible). The people had traded their treasures just to buy food, and their desperate pleas were useless. In deep distress, they poured out gut-wrenching emotional confessions to God. There were no excuses left. Outside of the city, the sword still killed, while inside the city, people died from famine and disease. Everyone could hear their groaning, yet Jerusalem sat alone like a lonely widow. God Himself had done this, and the surrounding nations knew it.

Chapter 2 continued the acrostic pattern, but the focus shifted. It was no longer focused on the enemies and the lonely widow; now the Lord Himself was pictured as the Destroyer. His anger hung over the city like a dark cloud. This was not the protective pillar of cloud and fire that had guided Moses and the Israelites out of Egypt. This cloud was oppressive and blocked out the light. God hurled “the splendor of Israel” from heaven to earth. He no longer remembered His “footstool” (the Temple or the ark) where His presence used to rest. The Lord acted like an enemy. He tore down the palaces and even His own dwelling place. The feasts, festivals, and Sabbaths were forgotten. The priests who served in the Holy of Holies stopped their work, and even the walls seemed to lament. The kings were taken into exile, and the prophets no longer received visions from God.

In chapter 3, the writer moved to the first person. The “I” of the sufferer had traditionally been linked to Jeremiah, but it also stood for the whole people. By the rod, He had turned His hand against me. “The rod” was for discipline again and again. The physical and emotional pain felt like being in a dark place. There was no escape, and the chains were heavy. He shut out and blocked the path of their prayers. They felt like God’s target practice, just the opposite of “the Lord is my shield.” The writer deliberately remembered the bitterness which weighed down his soul, yet he had hope in the Lord and used it every morning to remember God’s mercies. “Great is Your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:23). His faithfulness and aim are great. That was not a burst of optimism. It was realizing that in the middle of the ashes, God Himself was his portion and inheritance. The Lord is good to those who seek and want Him. Waiting is wisdom. Lamentations 3:28-30 foreshadowedJesus’s teachings on humility: silence, sitting in the dust of your pain, offering the other cheek when insulted. This was patient endurance, showing strength during suffering instead of revenge. God may give grief, but you are not cast away forever. He is unfailing love.

Today's Discussion question:

When suffering hits, and everything in you wants to fight, complain, or run, how can choosing silence, humility, and “the other check” actually become a way of trusting God through the pain?

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