From Darkness To Light, From Sorrow To Hope: Lessons From Jeremiah And Lamentationsናሙና

"Second Sunday After Christmas Day: Five Laments, Epilogue II"

Jeremiah’s third lament ends with a cry for vengeance; the fourth returns to the situation in Jerusalem. The golden articles from Jerusalem’s temple were covered with dust. Far more precious, the young men of Jerusalem were trampled underfoot, like fragments of broken pottery. Hunger gnawed away at the bones of Jerusalem’s citizens. Children not only died in their mothers’ arms; they also died at their mothers’ hands.

What had aroused the Lord’s anger? More than anything else, what invited divine judgment was the negligence of the city’s spiritual leaders. The prophets had sinned, leaving people to starve for God’s Word as well as for physical food. The temple priests had shed innocent blood. The king, too, had failed to provide godly leadership. 

Ultimately Jeremiah was looking for the kind of leadership that can only be found in Jesus Christ. Jesus is the true prophet, the holy priest, and the servant king. At their best, the prophets, priests, and kings of the Old Testament foreshadowed Christ’s coming. At their worst, they showed why his coming was necessary. 

The fifth and final poem in Lamentations is not so much a lament as it is a prayer. It is a prayer of last desperation, for times when everything else has failed to bring suffering to an end. Jeremiah’s desperate prayer begins with an appeal for God to recall what his people have suffered. This appeal is followed by a somber recitation of Jerusalem’s degradation. There is a reminder, too, of the emotional impact that all this suffering had on the citizens of Jerusalem. Jeremiah knew that God could restore Jerusalem, but still he wondered if God would. The prophet’s prayer seems doubtful as well as hopeful, raising the unwelcome prospect that Jerusalem is beyond redemption. Has God utterly rejected his people? 

There are many times when Christians find themselves asking the same kinds of questions: Has God rejected me? Can I still be saved? Is there any hope? Will my sufferings ever come to an end? In this troubled world, similar questions often need to be asked about the sufferings of others: Why does God allow persecution and oppression? What purpose does he hope to accomplish through warfare and famine? Unlike Jeremiah, we can do more than ask such questions. We can trust the answer God has provided through the atoning death of Jesus Christ, who makes this promise: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted” (Matthew 5:4).