Hope in Lament (Lam. 3.22-33)

The city is in ruins. Houses have been ransacked and burned. Shops that once thrived with business are no longer there. The palace, the home of the king and the government, is gone. The greatest physical building that is gone, completely razed to the ground like the city walls, is the temple. This was the place where God was thought to reside. As long as the temple stood, then it was believed that God was there and that nothing could happen to the city. After all wasn’t God the one who protected the people? And what about the people? The best of the best has been taken into exile, to live in Babylon. They have been taken as a reminder to those left behind that the people no longer have something to hold onto. They are utterly left without a king, a country, a temple, a people. And so, it was in 586 BCE when the exile of Judah began.

What came about after that time is the text for today, the book of poems known as Lamentations. A book of laments and mourning for what has happened. A mourning for the loss of the city. A mourning for what happened to the people during the time of the siege. A mourning for those left behind and their plight. It is a book that is not really uplifting. In other words, it is a real downer. This would explain its not being in the lectionary except during the time before Easter and this one time during ordinary time. In the Jewish faith there is a time where the book is read in its entirety to remember the time of the fall of the first and second temples as well as a time of lament and mourning for what has happened afterwards, whether that be the Holocaust or some other time Jews have been persecuted.

For Christians this is a mostly ignored book. How many sermons have you heard that have been from Lamentations? And when we do have a text from here, it is this particular text because it is the one where there is a shred of hope to be found. In fact, if you listened carefully, you heard the basis for the hymn Great is Thy Faithfulness. This hymn however does not do justice to the text. The hymn focuses on the good things that the Lord is doing and will do. It is a nice hymn that gives us comfort and hope. But the text from which it is based is one that comes after and before a list of hopelessness. It is a lament. But there is some hope.

The hope that is found in today’s text is that that of the Lord’s steadfast love, or hesed. It is the loyalty of God to those whom God has promised to care for that is at play here. The poet makes the point that God’s love is there forever, that mercies are new every morning. This is not a hope that there will be continuous mercies, but rather that the mercies are always new, each day is a new day.

But the poet also goes on to point out that one should wait on the Lord to bring about salvation. There is a call to God for hope and there is, right now according to the poet, no answer. And so, the lament goes on with the people waiting to hear from the Lord. But the poet tells those listening that it is good to wait, it is good to be under a yoke because these bring endurance to those who will wait.

It was believed by those in the time of the poet that God caused all things, good and bad. And this was one of those bad times. God had told the people of Judah through Jeremiah the prophet that they would be punished for their turning away from God. But the people did not believe this. They believed that as long as the temple remained and the sacrifices kept going then they would be safe. After all, wasn’t this the place where the God of the Exodus resided? Sure, God did things away from the city and in other lands, but this was God’s primary dwelling. This was where God’s people resided and no other groups were allowed in this place. Now, though, the poet tells the readers that the silence that they feel and hear is imposed by the Lord. The Lord is not there or is there and is not responding. It is similar to when C.S. Lewis in A Grief Observed states that it is like when one comes to God when one really needs God, then the door that was open before is now shut and bolted. He says that one can only turn and walk away.

But there is again some hope. The poet then says this: the Lord will not reject forever. Although the Lord causes grief, the Lord will have compassion according to the abundance of the Lord’s steadfast love; for the Lord does not willingly afflict or grieve anyone. [1] The hesed of the Lord is again on display. There will be compassion though right now it many not seem like it will ever come again. The Lord may discipline but it is not done willingly. It is not done with a smile and a “I told you so” type attitude. Rather, it is done with an attitude of heartbreak.

But what about the silence of the Lord? That is that question that is never resolved in the book. It continues with the lament of the poet and the cry of those who mourn for the loss that they feel. But there is still hope though not as we would like to think of it. Wyndy Reuschling has this to say about the hope found in Lamentations: it is “…not a false optimism that tomorrow will be better, but that every morning God will be faithfully present, even as we lament. These words of hope do not make lament go away. Hope is not a tidy ending that provides “closure” to our lamenting. Hope comes in the midst of lament where it might be most needed.”[2] The hope that comes is a hope that is there even when we believe that God is not there.

Laments are meant to be loud. Lament means to mourn, to grieve, to wail in response to something that has happened to us in our lives. We in the west are not good at lament. When something bad happens to us that should cause us to mourn and grieve like the poet in the text, we are told to stand up straight and have a stiff upper lip. We are told that we should be strong and not let our emotions get the better of us. In other words, we are told to grieve, but only on the inside. Yet when we do this there is something that is lost. I used to think that my family was out of line for its showing of grief. Now I’m not so sure they were wrong.

We have many things for which we should lament. There are the usual things: the loss of loved ones and friends, the loss of a job, the loss of a home, the loss of health, the loss of a friendship. These are all things to lament. We are to mourn those and when we do, we can find the hope that the poet did, that God will be present with us and that we can carry on. But something needs to be said here: it is ok to lament or mourn these things. They are a part of our lives and when something from our lives is no longer there, then we should mourn that. Do not think that you are weak when you do mourn the loss of any of these things.

We have more in this past year to lament as well. The loss of “normality”. The loss of being able to attend graduations, weddings, funerals or memorial services. The loss of meeting with friends. The loss of meeting with family. The loss of those who died during this time of the pandemic. The loss of the use of our sanctuary even though we were able to meet in person at another location. Reuschling says this about things to lament in our time: For all those killed in the brutalities and scorched earth of war? Lament. For racial, gender, and economic injustice? Lament. For the loss of hope and vision for a future? Lament.[3] Yes, we have much to mourn because all of these things. We should lament them and we should mourn for the losses that we have encountered. In fact, let us take a moment of silence to think of and to give place to our mourning….

In this time of uncertainty there is much to mourn and much to lament. But there is hope in lament that God will be with us. Reuschling says this in closing their commentary: “Even in lament, there is hope as the prophet reminds us, but perhaps only understood when we fully grasp the necessity of lament”[4]. Even in lament there is hope but only when we fully grasp the necessity of lament. I like that. When we fully grasp what it means to mourn and to lament, then we can understand the hope that the poet had in the hesed, the steadfast love of God. Amen.

[1] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989. Print. [2]Joel B. Green, Thomas G. Long, Luke A. Powery, Cynthia L. Rigby & Carolyn J. Sharp. Connections: Year B, Volume 3 (Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship) (p. 112). Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. Kindle Edition. [3] Joel B. Green, Thomas G. Long, Luke A. Powery, Cynthia L. Rigby & Carolyn J. Sharp. Connections: Year B, Volume 3 (Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship) (p. 112). Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. Kindle Edition. [4]Joel B. Green, Thomas G. Long, Luke A. Powery, Cynthia L. Rigby & Carolyn J. Sharp. Connections: Year B, Volume 3 (Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship) (p. 112). Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. Kindle Edition.