Lament: Lamentations part 2
I miss you. I miss our common life together. I miss your hugs and smiles. I miss us all being together in one physical place. If this was a normal year, we’d be doing the Bible Bowl practice round in the auditorium with the adults competing against our kids and teens. We’d be getting ready for our annual weekend with Lawrence Avenue with the cookout and combined service. We’d be telling stories of summer-church camp, paddle day, and summer Sunday nights together. We’d be getting together for Wednesday night suppers. But we’re not. I don’t say that to be depressing. I say that to be honest. I’m grateful for how the Spirit has sustained our church. We’re still connected to God and each other, even if it looks different. We’re still serving our city, even if it’s a tad more complicated. We’re still a church. No pandemic can change that. But it’s hard, and I miss you. On our Wednesday night Zoom this past week, I did a little poll. Which has been the hardest month of all of this? The clear top vote getter was August. I think that’s a combination of fatigue, school complexities, and a barrage of sin on our news feeds.
So together, we lament. We don’t do this to be negative, cynical, or depressing. We do this to be honest and hopeful. Lament is honest hope. As followers of Jesus, we are committed to truth. As Ryan said several weeks ago, “lament is the language which truth makes possible.” It’s true that life can be hard. It’s true that 2020 has offered unique challenges. But it’s also true that God is with us. God will not abandon us. This is what lament clings to.
We’re in our second week on the book of Lamentations. Around 600 BC, the Babylonians led by Nebuchadnezzar invade Jerusalem. The Jews interpret this as divine judgment based on hundreds of years of prophetic rebukes due to their sin. Nebuchadnezzar takes some of their best and brightest, such as Daniel, back to Babylon. He warns them to keep the taxes coming. Unfortunately, they double cross Babylon and try to cut a deal with the Egyptians. They give voice to following God but their actions show a greater in trust political maneuvers and physical power. The Babylonians return around 589 BC and lay siege. In around 586 BC, they break through the city walls and burn the temple to the ground. Last week, we discussed in grave detail the atrocities that took place. It’s some of the darkest content in all the Bible.
We framed lament as returning to the worst moment of your life in hopes that God would show up and reframe it all. For the Jews, this was their worst moment, the destruction of Solomon’s great temple. The exiles preserved these five poems known as Lamentations. They clung to them in hopes that God would bring light out of darkness, life out of death.
An amazing thing happens when you read Lamentations. Suddenly, in the middle of the five poems, a glimpse of hope surfaces. It’s like driving through Kansas and eastern Colorado only to see the Rockies come out of nowhere. Suddenly, the ground shifts. Many scholars see this center as the climactic meaning, the substantive meat of the sandwich so to speak. Out of the chaos, we receive some of the most beautiful and hopeful words of the Old Testament.
Lamentations 3:22 Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. 23 They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. 24 I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.” 25 The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; 26 it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. 27 It is good for a man to bear the yoke while he is young. 28 Let him sit alone in silence, for the Lord has laid it on him. 29 Let him bury his face in the dust—there may yet be hope. 30 Let him offer his cheek to one who would strike him, and let him be filled with disgrace. 31 For no one is cast off by the Lord forever. 32 Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love.
This comforting, optimistic passage seems so out of place. How can you look at the devastation, the death, and the suffering by innocent children only to say this? You can only say this if you’re committed to a truth that present circumstances seem to cloud. You can only say this if you’re committed to a truth that will prevail in the future. You can only say this if you know something, someone, that seems so far off to everyone else.
What do they know? Three things. God is love. God is good. God is faithful. Surely, so many experiencing the destruction would want to argue those points. But they cling to them. God is love. God is good. God is faithful. Reflect on that. Let me phrase it in the negative. God is not a god of hate. God is not a god of evil. God is not a god that abandons. Love, goodness, faithfulness-these words describe our God. The exiles clung to these truths despite their circumstances. They prayed that a loving, good, and faithful God would do something in the future. And God did.
This story did not represent the end of the Jews or the end of Jerusalem. They did not become a casualty of human history. God demonstrated faithfulness. In seventy years, a group of exiles came back to rebuild. The prophet Jeremiah, sometimes credited as the author of Lamentations, prophesied this in Jeremiah 29.
10 This is what the Lord says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. 11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
According to Jeremiah, God would not forever abandon his people. And Jeremiah was right. Eventually, Persia conquers Babylon. We receive this story in the book of Daniel. Cyrus the Great rules the Persian empire. He allows some of the exiles to return, led by Zerubbabel. Their return aligns with the timetable prophesied by Jeremiah. Some decades later, Ezra and later Nehemiah come to Jerusalem to help with the revival through initiating temple worship and rebuilding the walls. Let this soak in. The Jews outlasted the Babylonians. The Jews outlast Nebuchadnezzar. The Jews did not recede from history. A few hundred years later, Jesus will be born into the Jewish people. God kept his promise to Abraham.
God keeps his promises. God will never abandon his people. If we have the courage to venture into this dark story, we come out with this hopeful reminder. This is what laments offer. Be honest about how bad things are. But tell the truth. God is good. God is love. God is faithful.
So last week, I told you a story. I told you about some of my pain, specifically my mother’s death in my childhood. I told you about a few months I spent in counseling years ago. I went to process some pain in my present, but everything ultimately funneled back towards this one moment. I was on a stretcher in a hallway, and I felt completely alone. My counselor asked, “if you could go back and say something to that 8-year-old self, what would you say?”
I like that question. I threw it out to you. If you could revisit yourself in your darkest moment, what message would you have? I’m convinced that your answer to this question reveals a lot. If you don’t know what you’d say, that’s okay. I understand. But I encourage you to sit with that if possible. Spend time in lament. And I think God will meet you there.
So when my counselor asked me, “what would your present self say to your past self?” I paused for about 10 seconds. And then I said this to my old self, “Things will get better.” As I talk to you now, I realize I could have polished that a bit. I could have made it sound more spiritual, more tweetable. But that’s what I said. That’s what I meant. That’s what I live by. Things will get better. Because God is good, loving, and faithful, things will get better.
You see, in your darkest moment, as you process your loss, your mind goes this direction. What if the pain I’m experiencing now never goes away? What if the feeling I have right now never leaves? What if I feel like this every day? What if I never smile or laugh again? What if I never come back from Babylon?
God has taught me this in life, in Scripture, and in the testimony of the historical church. Things will get better. In my life, every dark period ultimately got better. I’ve never received all the explanations I desire, but life did trend better in some ways, even if not in every way. God makes things better over time. I live by this.
Over the years, I’ve had to try it out on other’s situations. I don’t offer friends glib, trite statements, but I wonder if the mantra applies. When my friend lost their Dad way too early. When my student got cancer. When my friend got sent to prison. When my family member lost his job. In most every situation, the truth seems to hold up. Things will get better. Because God is loving, good, and faithful, things will get better, just as they did for the exiles.
But there are some situations where the mantra seems tested. Terminal situations. Death seems to test the truth of “things will get better.” For someone on their death bed, does it hold true? For someone with stage four cancer, does it hold true? For someone on death row, does it hold true? For Jeremiah, who ended up being taken against his will to Egypt and died there never seeing the exiles return, does it hold true for him?
These questions present the greatest test of the refrain, “the steadfast love the Lord never ceases.” This is the test of the line “no one is cast off from the Lord forever.” Does the promise hold true? There’s only one way for the promise to prove true-resurrection. There’s only one way that the mantra “things will get better” will hold true-resurrection. If we don’t come back to life, then I can’t say things will get better. If we don’t come back to life, I might have some days that get better, but life will always end on a low note. But if we come back to life, death becomes a transition into something better.
You don’t see a lot of clear-cut descriptions of resurrection in the Old Testament. It would seem that beliefs on the resurrection grow during what we call the inter testamental period. By the New Testament era, resurrection is a lively debate, and many Jews believe in it.
Among the exiles though, we do see some hints of a developing description of the resurrection. Specifically, consider the story of Ezekiel. He’s a prophet like Jeremiah. Unlike him though, Ezekiel gets taken to Babylon. He dies there, never seeing the return. God speaks many wondrous prophecies through him. My favorite comes from Ezekiel 37, the Valley of the Dry Bones. In the vision, God tells Ezekiel to speak to a valley of skeletons, and as he does, the power of God raises them from the dead. We then have this promise in the vision. “13 And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. 14 And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the Lord.”
Even as Ezekiel died in Babylon, even as Jeremiah died in Egypt, you could say to them, “things will get better.” Why? Because God raises his people from the dead. God’s people live forever. And of course, this only happens because of the power of Jesus-his incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension.
Lament is returning to the worst thing that has ever happened and patiently waiting for God to show up. It’s tough to do. It hurts. It involves vulnerability and risk. It’s easier to avoid it. But if you face and name your pain in truth, God will show up.
I don’t know all the details of what you are carrying, but I know you’re carrying a lot. I want you to know that we are with you. I want you to know that you are not alone. I want you to know this: things will get better. Because God is good, loving, and faithful, things will get better. Jesus proved all of that.
Years ago, on the worst day of my life, I hit rock bottom as my mother died. If I could go back and talk to myself on that day, I would say this, “things will get better.” God has proved that true. But I would also do this. I would stand over my mother’s casket, and I would proclaim over her dead body, “things will get better.” That statement was not just true for me. It’s true for her. It’s true for her now. Right now, I believe she is with Jesus. As I think of that, I can’t help but smile. I can’t fully embrace that goodness though unless I’m willing to go back to that worst day. You can’t have the resurrection without the cross.
Lament is good for us. We need to do it more. Let’s tell the truth. Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. We will live with Jesus forever. Things will get better.
