Lamentations is a series of poems, apparently. Hebrew poems are a bit different to English poems, in that usual structure is based on what we would call ‘acrostic’. Typical poetry might have 22 stanzas, each beginning with the next letter in the Hebrew alphabet. Chapter 2 of Lamentations is like this.
The content is very similar to chapter 1, in that it deals with the humiliation of Judah and Israel. My mind structured it as follows:
V. 1-9: The LORD’s part in the destruction of Judah
1-5: Generally
6-9: Specifically against the ‘Holy’ things
V.10-16: People’s response to the calamity
10: The elder’s response
11-14: Jeremiah’s response
15-16: The surrounding nation’s response
V.17-19: Summary and Lament
17-18: Summary
19: Lament and commands
V.20-22: Prayer to the LORD
20: Request for the LORD to ‘reconsider’ due to the severity
21-22: Further description of the severity of the punishment
As I read the chapter, my mind kept flicking to thinking – how similar is Judah to the church today? Last chapter, I focussed on the internal struggle with sorrow, resulting from external hardship. I had a reply which was particularly true and helpful, because there are two types of sorrow: there is sorrow over sin committed, which is essential to the Christian life, and is one of the causes of a broken-heart, which leads to God being able to use you. The other type of sorrow is more of a selfish sorrow, resulting from being disappointed in life (about physical or external things). This sorrow is necessary or inevitable, but unless we see God through it, will not be beneficial.
Nevertheless, last chapter I focussed on internal sorrow, but this chapter my mind was thinking about the state of the church, and our response to that. It is an over-dramatic caricature in some respects, and I do not believe at all that there was meant to be some type of link between Judah and the Church in this respect. But I do see elements, especially in Jeremiah’s response to the situation, that might challenge us in our response to situations around us.
Challenge 1:
‘He has done violence to His tabernacle,
As if it were a garden;
He has destroyed His place of assembly;
The LORD has caused
The appointed feasts and Sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion
In His burning indignation He has spurned the king and the priest.
The Lord has spurned His altar,
He has abandoned His sanctuary;
He has given up the walls of her palaces
Into the hand of the enemy...’ (Lamentations 2:6-7a)
One may think that even though God has punished His people for their transgressions, that the ‘Holy things’ that He has ordained, He would keep in place. The Temple, the feasts and Sabbaths, the altar...all were symbols of the purity that the people lacked. Humanly speaking, wouldn’t it be wise to keep those things undefiled as a sign that the people had failed, but God’s purity would never be marred? So that the standard to which they must live has not changed?
I think this view underestimates God’s plan. For even in the Old Testament, God’s heart was not in the ritual obedience of His people, nor the sacrifices they burnt, but in their heart and attitude towards Him, in their willing and joyful obedience of His instruction. Thus His reprisal of the people also engenders a reprisal of the ritualistic traps they had fallen into, convincing themselves that they were pleasing God. You see, as Jesus says, Man was not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath for man – and His altars and the Temple are the same. They are for men, a gracious gift of God to men, for their benefit. But when they are misused and profaned, God shows that it is not them that He wishes Israel to keep and ritually attend to. Rather, He wants their hearts and souls and their very lives. And thus, by letting the feasts be forgotten and the Temple destroyed He causes grief on the part of Israel, but shows them mercy – for He is showing them again the way to Him.
Are we similar to Israel? Personally? Collectively? Is our ‘Christianity’ merely a ritual played out day-by-day? Are the prayers from the heart or the head? Does God own our lives and hearts and souls, or just our name and our Sundays? What is Christendom like as a whole? How much of what we do is merely ritual or tradition? I am not saying that tradition or ‘ritual-style’ practices are bad – but it is doing these things for the sake of ritual or tradition that is utterly worthless. We must challenge ourselves on this daily, because as humans we have a natural tendency towards ritual. It is less effort. Remember, God would tear down all our rituals and traditions if it would help us.
Challenge 2:
What is our response to sin in the church? (or likewise, sin in our own life?) There are two responses given here, both extreme, and both from different perspectives.
‘The elders of the daughter of Zion
Sit on the ground and keep silence;
They throw dust on their heads
And gird themselves with sackcloth.’ (Lamentations 2:10a)
The wearing of sackcloth is often an image of repentance in the Bible (for example the Ninevites in Jonah). Obviously, an extreme sorrow is being conveyed here by the elders of Judah, the ‘wise ones’ of the nation. But it is a contained sorrow, almost a quiet mourning. The feeling that comes across to me is that of deep regret and determination to change. Is this our response to sin in our own lives? Are we hit by the ugliness of our sin, and sit silent, repenting in the dust? Or do we carry on as if it hadn’t happened? In a way, both must be true. For if we are living in the light of past sin all the time, we will never have victory, whereas we know that Jesus has already paid for all of our sins, and thus we need no longer be subject to them. But this sorrow and regret is a precursor to the repentance, which for us immediately brings us this sense of freedom and victory, and thus the sorrow and regret is still necessary and important (as was stated above). To what extent do we regret our own sins? As we grow closer and closer to Christ, we should bemoan our sin more and more, as we begin to see the contrast of its true ugliness against the beauty of Christ.
Likewise, what is the state of the church? What response do those ‘elders’ of the church have towards sin in the church? Is it passed off or even encouraged? Or is it condemned and mourned?
The next response is that of Jeremiah himself (or the author of this book)
‘My eyes fail with tears,
My heart is troubled;
My bile is poured on the ground
Because the children and the infants
Faint in the streets of the city.’ (Lamentations 2:11)
Well that’s pretty intense! This is a more personal response, directed towards the results of the sin. That is, Jeremiah is aghast at the horrors of the destruction around him. What are our responses to the consequences of sin around us? Do we ignore it? Dismiss it? Are we so used to death and suffering and evil that we are unfeeling towards it? Well, Jeremiah was in an extreme situation of course (which will become even more evident later on), but I really think that we can all be challenged by his response to the disaster around him. Jeremiah was so overcome with emotion that he not only cried until he couldn’t see anymore, but he vomited and was made physically sick. This reminds us not to become complacent and uncaring towards suffering in the world.
Challenge 3:
‘Arise, cry out in the night,
At the beginning of the watches;
Pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord.
Lift your hands toward Him
For the life of your young children
Who faint from hunger at the head of every street.’ (Lamentations 2:19)
How passionate are we in our requests of the Lord? How honest and open are we in bringing our lives to Him? How reliable are we in turning our problems over to Him? Just the other night I was thinking quite fervently about something I had to do the next morning, and planning and debating in my mind what exactly to do, and worrying about if it would be alright, as I was going to bed. Then all of a sudden a thought popped into my head: ‘Just ask God to take care of it and leave it to Him, silly!’ I did, and automatically it was off my shoulders. I couldn’t help but think how much time and effort and energy we waste worrying about things ourselves instead of being reliable and consistent in turning them over to God.
This verse goes much further than that. It tells us to pour out our heart like water before the face of the Lord! Once you pour water out of a cup – unless you pour it into another non-porous vessel, you will never get the water back in the cup. It is a non-reversible process. And we are asked to pour out our hearts to God in the same way! We should never expect them to come back. Just pour them out, give them to Him once and for all! The sheer urgency of the words that Jeremiah says to the people is astounding – but they are in a time where the utmost urgency in prayer is needed. How much less is needed today? Is the world better off now? Are there no children fainting from hunger? Worse, are there no children of God, starving for God’s word, but with no means of getting it? Are there no children, lost and blind, without the light of the gospel? No, I think now is as good a time as any to be pouring our hearts out like water before the face of the Lord.
Challenge 4:
‘See, O LORD, and consider!
To whom have You done this?
Should the women eat their offspring,
The children they have cuddled?
Should the priest and the prophet be slain
In the sanctuary of the Lord?’ (Lamentations 2:20)
This verse gives us a glimpse of the magnitude of the horror that Judah was undergoing: mothers were so starved of food that they were eating their own children, whom they had been nursing. (This during the siege of Jerusalem). Moreover, it presents us with a challenge: are we interceding in prayer for those around us? Are we consistent in coming to the Lord for our friends and relatives and those we know in order to seek His grace?
They are all simple challenges, and yet in no wise simple to fulfil. Let us, by God’s grace and the Holy Spirit, strive daily to see these things fulfilled in our own lives.
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