Ordinary Time Week 20

Psalm: Psalm 37:1-9 or Psalm 137
Old Testament: Lamentations 1:1-6
 or Lamentations 3:19-26 or Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4
Gospel: Luke 17:5-10
Epistle: 2 Timothy 1:1-14

I want today to turn our attentions toward the book of Lamentations this week. It is not a place we turn to very often. In fact, If we are not in the midst of mourning or tragedy, we would rather ignore it. Yet, Lamentations the book, and lament in general, have a place in the human condition and the liturgical life of the church. Just as a reminder, Lamentations is generally thought to have been written by Jeremiah, also known as the Weeping Prophet. However, like every "traditional author" in the Bible, this has been challenged in recent biblical scholarship.

One thing is clear however, the text involves the destruction of Jerusalem, or Zion as the author calls it--the City of God. There were quite a few prophets active right before, during or after the time of the exile, so whether Jeremiah or one of the other known prophets, wrote the text isn't of direct importance to understanding the situation of despair the author and his people were in.

The Hebrew title of Lamentations of  'ekah, "how." This is the first word in 1:1, 2:1, and 4:1 and there are only 5 chapters. This is an appropriate question to their circumstances and no doubt the people were also asking "why?" How and why could the People of God find themselves in this situation? Jerusalem represented the very place of God on earth. The temple complex in Jerusalem and specifically the altar and the Ark of the Covenant, were the literal resting place of God on earth. The place where heaven and earth connected. The fall of Jerusalem was more than just a national catastrophe in the life of a nation and people, it called into question the whole religious devotion of Yahweh. If God was not able to defend himself, his people, or his temple, was he really that powerful? These are the types of questions that the exhilic and post-exhilic prophets had to wrestle with. We see this in Ezekiel 11:23 when the glory of the Lord (God's presence) leaves the temple--a direct reversal of Exodus 40:34-38 and 1 Kings 8:11.

Lamentations itself does not seek to answer these questions. Rather it sits in the hard and broken places of life. It is much like Job, where Job tries to sit in lament and just feel the brokenness. The author does offers little glimpses of hope in a few areas and remembers that God is faithful, but that doesn't answer the hard questions of Jerusalem's destruction and the people's exile. We have to turn to other places in the Old Testament for fuller answers to these issues, such as Ezekiel's vision of the dry bones coming to life and the promise that God's presence will live in the people's hearts rather than only in the temple. (chs. 36-37) Ezekiel also offers a vision of the glory of the Lord returning to Jerusalem and the temple at a future date. (43)

Lamentations shows us that there is an appropriate and necessary time to  mourn and lament. Life can sometimes not live up to all that we want it to. Hurt, pain, rejection, sickness, loss, and exile, all strike. Often times at know one's fault in particular other than the overarching Sin that is present in this world. And so we lament. We lament that God's Kingdom has not yet fully come. We lament that creation, and our little part in it, are yearning for God's glory to come in its fullest.

We lament...and yet we hope. God's word always reminds us that in the very real brokenness we see and fell, God is with us. His glory may have left the earthly temple, but it resides in our hearts. And the story of creation is one ultimately one of salvation. God is coming again and he will set everything right in the New Jerusalem!

May we learn how to lament, mourn, and recognize the brokenness of this world, but in doing so may we also learn to see the story of God's salvation at work.

Grace and Peace.