Reading: Lamentations 4-5, Psalm 30
Today we wrap up the book of Lamentations. Yesterday we heard the prophet admit that God alone is the source of his pain and the hope for restoration. We heard him appeal to God’s faithfulness for ultimate justice. Today, those themes are spun out in the final two chapters of the book. In the first, the prophet returns to expressing how devastated his people are, going through a series of comparisons of how they looked before and how they look now. The second is a call for God to act, to restore his people and bring justice to the nations. I believe the closing line, which appears to express doubt, is actually an argument and a challenge for God to carry out his promises.
The state of the people of Israel is painted in poetic but detailed terms. The prophet has lived long enough to remember when the princes and rulers of the city were famously handsome, beloved and respected by everyone. Now they are covered in soot, emaciated, and despised by their enemies. The kings of the earth did not believe…that the enemy could enter the gates of Jerusalem. As we have seen in several of the minor prophets, there was a prevailing attitude that as the chosen people of their powerful God, Jerusalem would always be protected. Remember the story of the Assyrian army in the time of Hezekiah? Even surrounded by the greatest power of their day, the city of God’s Temple was delivered and the enemy destroyed. Shallow faith in who they thought they were did not serve to save them. Images of extreme desperation abound- being treated at lepers at home and blind vagrants abroad, cannibalism and infanticide, imprisonment in pits. The prophet wants to leave no doubt in any of his reader’s minds about how bad things had gotten.
The closing chapter of Lamentations continues the theme but makes a call for God’s deliverance. While the previous chapter was descriptive, here the prophet is making an argument. The state of the people is reviewed, and responsibility is taken: woe to us, for we have sinned. The prophet is not saying God owes his people deliverance because they are deserving. He is calling on God to fulfill his own promises. Similar to the closing prayer of Isaiah, where the prophet asks God to tear open the heavens and come down, the prophet here is asking God to show up. He asks God to restore his people based on his own character, not the character of the people. He admits that their declaration of independence did not work out so well.
The closing paragraph looks rather double minded. The prophet asks why do you always forget us? and asks God to restore unless you have utterly rejected us. Is the prophet hedging? Using some kind of super humility prayer, making sure God knows he understands that God can do whatever he wants? I don’t believe so. I think these are arguments appealing to the character of the God that the prophet believes in. The God who defined himself as compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. The God who forgives wickedness, rebellion, and sin but by no means leaves the guilty unpunished. The prophet does not excuse his people. We deserved the punishment, as we were guilty. But that is only part of who God is. These are appeals to a God who does not forget. Who does not utterly reject. Who always makes all things new.