Lamentations

Reference: I leaned heavily upon Mark Vroegop book Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy to help provide clear, biblical wording when describing Lament.

Introduction

We very likely will not get to the book of Lamentations tonight.

To better appreciate Lamentations we need to consider the purpose and value of lament.

I could see some objections. Why think upon these things? The purpose of lamenting is not to dig a hole of deep emotion and fall into to it. It is too dig in God’s Word until we find a solid bedrock. It is to offer hope.

Introduction to lamenting and lamentations.

Lament is an important and biblical category that we need to understand and embrace.  We need lament not only because it is in the Bible, but also because there is far more pain in our church than we even realize.

To cry is human but to lament is Christian. - Vroegop

Lament

A lament gives voice and words to emotions and questions that believers face in the midst of suffering, pain, and hardship.

Laments wrestle with at least two questions: “Where are you, God?” and “If you love me, why is this happening?”

Since the audience of a lament is God, every lament is really a prayer.

It takes faith to pray prayers of lament.

Lament is both an act of worship and a means of leading us to worship. 

Lament keeps us out of two spiritual ditches: “You owe me” and “It’s over.”

Lament acknowledges the ultimate cause of suffering and longs for the promised resolution.

Christians can truly lament because they understand the full story of redemption. 

You know the full story that teaches us in the darkest of days God is not absent but is on a cross.

Crying expresses sorrow over pain while Christian lament goes further; it interprets the cause and the trajectory of pain. 

Let us look for these things in the example of a lament given in Psalm 77

Psalm 77 (KJV 1900)

To the chief Musician, to Jeduthun, A Psalm of Asaph.

1 I cried unto God with my voice, Even unto God with my voice; and he gave ear unto me. (element of trust in knowing where to direct our cause)

2 In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord: My sore ran in the night, and ceased not: My soul refused to be comforted. (acknowledging that there is a wrestling in the soul)

3 I remembered God, and was troubled: I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed. Selah. (pause and think upon these things - the great enemy of lament is a frantic pace to move on from hurt))

4 Thou holdest mine eyes waking: I am so troubled that I cannot speak.

5 I have considered the days of old, The years of ancient times.

6 I call to remembrance my song in the night: I commune with mine own heart: And my spirit made diligent search. ( wrestle honestly with the tough tension related to the mystery of God’s plans and purposes.)

7 Will the Lord cast off for ever? And will he be favourable no more?

8 Is his mercy clean gone for ever? Doth his promise fail for evermore?

9 Hath God forgotten to be gracious? Hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies? Selah.

10 And I said, This is my infirmity: But I will remember the years of the right hand of the most High.

11 I will remember the works of the Lord: Surely I will remember thy wonders of old.

12 I will meditate also of all thy work, and talk of thy doings.

13 Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary: Who is so great a God as our God? (wrestling two questions: “Where are you, God?” and “If you love me, why is this happening?”)

14 Thou art the God that doest wonders: Thou hast declared thy strength among the people.

15 Thou hast with thine arm redeemed thy people, The sons of Jacob and Joseph. Selah.

16 The waters saw thee, O God, the waters saw thee; they were afraid: The depths also were troubled.

17 The clouds poured out water: The skies sent out a sound: Thine arrows also went abroad.

18 The voice of thy thunder was in the heaven: The lightnings lightened the world: The earth trembled and shook.

19 Thy way is in the sea, And thy path in the great waters, And thy footsteps are not known.

20 Thou leddest thy people like a flock By the hand of Moses and Aaron. (Lament is both an act of worship and a means of leading us to worship.) 

The opposites of lament are despair and prayerlessness, and they are often linked together as unbelief settles into the heart of a person in pain.

While laments may express deep emotions and ask painful questions, there is a difference between asking God and accusing God.

It is a sin to accuse God, as if you sit in judgment of Him. 

Laments wrestle honestly with the tough tension related to the mystery of God’s plans and purposes.

Lamentations

Lamentations Gives Voice to Our Grief

Although we can’t draw a one-to-one application from Israel’s circumstances to ours, Lamentations can teach us to hear and speak the biblical language of lament, which is crucial to dealing with grief

Collection of five lament or “funeral” poems (poems of sorrow and mourning) that give voice to the grief of God’s people in the wake of Jerusalem’s fall and Judah’s demise in 587 BC.

The book mourns the day, warned of by the prophets, when God became like an enemy to Israel, giving them over to Babylon because of their chronic disregard for his covenant.

2 Chron 2 Kings 24-25, Jer 52 give you the facts; Lamentations gives you the emotions, emotions that are raw, honest, dark, and even volatile at times.

“Part of the horror of human suffering is to be unheard, forgotten and nameless, thrown aside…Lamentations is a summons to remember realities endured by real people like ourselves, to bear witness and pay heed to their voice” Christopher Wright

2 Chronicles 36:11–21 (KJV 1900)

11 Zedekiah was one and twenty years old when he began to reign, and reigned eleven years in Jerusalem.

12 And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord his God, and humbled not himself before Jeremiah the prophet speaking from the mouth of the Lord.

13 And he also rebelled against king Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God: but he stiffened his neck, and hardened his heart from turning unto the Lord God of Israel.

14 Moreover all the chief of the priests, and the people, transgressed very much after all the abominations of the heathen; and polluted the house of the Lord which he had hallowed in Jerusalem.

15 And the Lord God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising up betimes (before time), and sending; because he had compassion on his people, and on his dwelling place:

16 But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, till there was no remedy.

Do not miss the weight of the words “til there was no remedy.”  The nation had strayed far enough and long enough.  God had reached a point where He could no longer allow the nation to continue.  The time for judgment had come.

17 Therefore he brought upon them the king of the Chaldees, who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion upon young man or maiden, old man, or him that stooped for age: he gave them all into his hand.

18 And all the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king, and of his princes; all these he brought to Babylon.

19 And they burnt the house of God, and brake down the wall of Jerusalem, and burnt all the palaces thereof with fire, and destroyed all the goodly vessels thereof.

20 And them that had escaped from the sword carried he away to Babylon; where they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia:

21 To fulfil the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths: for as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years.

Jeremiah has a difficult assignment in life

Jeremiah 9:1 KJV 1900

1 Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, That I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!

We only know of two converts from his ministry. 

God commanded him not to marry

His own people plotted to kill him.

Jerusalem personified as the “daughter of Zion”

Lamentations 1:1 “1 How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! How is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations, And princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!”

A widowed, childless, vulnerable woman who endured mistreatment, affliction, and starvation during the siege and capture of the city. (They were surrounded and begin to eat their own children)

The narrator and the “daughter of Zion” begin to “dialogue” in chapter one, allowing us to hear her express her pain.

She cries to all who pass by her, looking for comfort amidst her affliction, though none is found. She weeps with sorrow, her strength fails, she’s in distress, she groans continually, she cries to God, all to no avail. You can’t help but be moved by her pain and shame, even if it was the result of her sin.

Lamentations 1 (KJV 1900)

1 How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! How is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations, And princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!

2 She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks: Among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her: All her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies.

3 Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude: She dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest: All her persecutors overtook her between the straits.

4 The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts: All her gates are desolate: her priests sigh, Her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.

5 Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper; For the Lord hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: Her children are gone into captivity before the enemy.

6 And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed: Her princes are become like harts that find no pasture, And they are gone without strength before the pursuer.

7 Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries All her pleasant things that she had in the days of old, When her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her: The adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths.

8 Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed: All that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: Yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.

9 Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end; Therefore she came down wonderfully: she had no comforter. O Lord, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath magnified himself.

10 The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things: For she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary, Whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation.

11 All her people sigh, they seek bread; They have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul: See, O Lord, and consider; for I am become vile.

12 Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see If there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, Wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.

13 From above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them: He hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back: He hath made me desolate and faint all the day.

14 The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand: They are wreathed, and come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall, The Lord hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up.

15 The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me: He hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men: The Lord hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress.

16 For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water, Because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me: My children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed.

17 Zion spreadeth forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her: The Lord hath commanded concerning Jacob, that his adversaries should be round about him: Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them.

18 The Lord is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment: Hear, I pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow: My virgins and my young men are gone into captivity.

19 I called for my lovers, but they deceived me: My priests and mine elders gave up the ghost in the city, While they sought their meat to relieve their souls.

20 Behold, O Lord; for I am in distress: my bowels are troubled; Mine heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled: Abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as death.

21 They have heard that I sigh: there is none to comfort me: All mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it: Thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called, and they shall be like unto me.

22 Let all their wickedness come before thee; And do unto them, as thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions: For my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.

Lament turns the heart toward worship and awakens slumbering hearts

Lament is the bridge between your pain and praise. 

Lament is how a painful heart is tuned to sing God’s song. 

Lament is how we reorient our hearts away from anger, frustration, and despair. 

Lament starts us on a faith-filled path of worship.

We should join all creation in groaning

Romans 8:22 “22 For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.”

Lament reminds us that there is something wrong with the world.  And it points us to the one who can ultimately make everything right.

We understands the problem of sin and laments the effects of sins, we long for the day when sin will no longer have its horrific effects on this world.

Conclusion

Lamentations is appropriately dark, but it is not without hope.

Reminder at the darkest day in human history God was not absent. He had left His throne years in advance, lived a perfect like tempted like as we are, allowed them to place Him on the cross so that our story would not be without hope.

Hope has a name it is Jesus. Without Him in our story without hope. With him we have more than enough for today and eternity.