Lamentations

Ron Writes

Laments. Weeping. Suffering. Mourning. These describe the painful sides of life. Jesus said, “in this world you will have sorrows.” The Bible is not only about experiencing joy, but it talks about how to express sorrow during troublesome times. Tears are often shed in Scripture.

The prophet Jeremiah wrote an entire book of Lamentations. The words that he preached had come true. Babylon had invaded. Jerusalem had fallen. The sacred Temple was destroyed. Their homes were gone. They were dragged into captivity.  They had felt God’s anger and judgement. The prophet and nation were in mourning.

Lamentations is a unique book. Because of its connection to the book of Jeremiah by authorship and historical context, it is placed with the books of prophecy. However, it could have just had easily been included with the books of poetry. Its unique poetic nature isn’t apparent in our English translations. In Hebrew it would be apparent that the first 4 chapters are acrostic. Each verse begins with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet. There are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet, thus you will note the 22 verses of each chapter, except for chapter 3 which has 66 verses because each letter has 3 verses. The fifth chapter is not acrostic, but still has 22 verses. The fifth chapter is a prayer.

Why he would write out his grief alphabetically is not known for sure. There is that “A to Z” sense of completeness. Maybe he writes out the alphabet 4 times so we can know the completeness of his sadness. Perhaps, just as we eventually come to “Z” our sorrows will also come to an end.

The amazing verses we sing are found in the middle of chapter 3. “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness.  The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore I will hope in him” (22-24). No matter how much pain we experience, God still loves us. Dan Williams (Harding Univ.) says that he uses “hope” because hope is like a pair of binoculars. They let you see far away what you can’t see on your own. When something bad happens, Christians don’t deny, minimize or cover it up, but we look to the end of the road, to a time when we will be with God. Even when we’re in pain, we have hope, because God has something better planned that will fill us with joy.