Almost a year ago now I tried to start a series on Lamentations, that has been fairly sporadic. But there is now a post on all of the first four chapters. This post concludes that series and starts an Advent series. In the last chapter of Lamentations the Lamenting poet reaches the end of his Lament.
Unlike each of the other chapters of Lamentations, which are all carefully constructed acrostic poems, with each line/stanza beginning with a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet, this final chapter is simply 22 lines of outpoured grief. This time there is no structure, as if to signal that the grief now is simply too great for such care.
The lament culminates in these words of anguish in 5:16-18:
Joy is gone from our hearts;
our dancing has turned to mourning.
16 The crown has fallen from our head.
Woe to us, for we have sinned!
17 Because of this our hearts are faint,
because of these things our eyes grow dim
18 for Mount Zion, which lies desolate,
with jackals prowling over it.
Remember, that as these words are written the Lamenter sits in the ruins of Jerusalem after its destruction by the Babylonians. God’s judgment has come on the people – and they have come crashing down to the ground. Those caught up in this calamity have differing degrees of capability in the tragedy, but all suffer appalling desolation.
I imagine that in one way or another all of us as 2021 draws to a close have a sense of walking in the midst of difficult times. We are heading into nearly 2 years of living in the midst of a deadly global pandemic, and each time we think we may be turning a corner news of a new variant strikes a further blow to our hopes.
In our workplaces, in family life, and in our churches this has brought turmoil and struggle. In our churches it comes on top of all the usual strains of church life, and amplifies every dispute and disagreement. It has made communication harder, and misunderstanding all too easy. We have heard plenty of tales of leaders abusing their power and bullying others. Where once it seemed that leaders fell into temptation and disgraced themselves, now they seem to be embracing power and dragging others along with them into lives and networks marked by fear.
Truly at such times we lament – and perhaps the final prayer marks us too:
You, Lord, reign forever;
your throne endures from generation to generation.
20 Why do you always forget us?
Why do you forsake us so long?
21 Restore us to yourself, Lord, that we may return;
renew our days as of old
22 unless you have utterly rejected us
and are angry with us beyond measure.
That final paragraph is the bleak conclusion for the Lament. Maybe God has finally given up. We know that the answer is that he hasn’t. But the Lamenter does not yet know that. Perhaps intellectually he knows that, but in the experience here and now it looks exactly like it would if God had given up. And sometimes that experience is ours too. Sometimes it looks and feels exactly like God has given up.
This book reminds us that such experiences have been a regular part of being God’s people. But, by being part of a larger collection of books, by being part of the Scriptures that bear witness to God’s continued dealings with his people, and his promises and purposes to bless his people and through them all nations, by being a part of those Scriptures this individual book testifies to the reality that those experiences are not the whole story.
It is that bigger story that Advent invites us to remember, and there are few better places to start the memory of that bigger story than Isaiah 40. Isaiah 40 begins a new section of Isaiah. Chapters 1-39 are written about and into events in Hezekiah’s day (and the day of his immediate predecessors and successors), but chapter 40 steps out from that time period and addresses those sitting in the ruins of Jerusalem, or those who have sat in the ruins of Jerusalem but now sit in Babylon, wondering how they can sing the songs of Zion in a foreign land (Psalm 137).
Chapter 40 sounds a note of joyful hope and triumph:
40 Comfort, comfort my people,
says your God.
2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and proclaim to her
that her hard service has been completed,
that her sin has been paid for,
that she has received from the Lord’s hand
double for all her sins.
In answer to the anguished cry of Lamentations 5:22 the resounding answer is given – Yahweh will have mercy. There are words of comfort to come.
A voice of one calling:
“In the wilderness prepare
the way for the Lord[a];
make straight in the desert
a highway for our God.[b]
4 Every valley shall be raised up,
every mountain and hill made low;
the rough ground shall become level,
the rugged places a plain.
5 And the glory of the Lord will be revealed,
and all people will see it together.
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
There is a road about to be created for God to come back to his people, for the people to see Yahweh’s glory for themselves. Chapter 40 of Isaiah, and the chapters that follow are some of my favourite portions of Scripture. They speak so clearly and resoundingly of God’s activity on behalf of his people. They are the resounding answer to the despair of Lamentations 5:22.
I want to dig deeper into some of these chapters this advent, but for now I want us to think of how these chapters don’t answer Lamentations 5:22.
There is no explanation. There is no defence of God’s judgement on the people. There is no detailed argument as to why it is fair to judge a whole city in such a way. There is no addressing directly the despair. Instead the prophet is told to say this:
A voice says, “Cry out.”
And I said, “What shall I cry?”
“All people are like grass,
and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field.
7 The grass withers and the flowers fall,
because the breath of the Lord blows on them.
Surely the people are grass.
8 The grass withers and the flowers fall,
but the word of our God endures forever.”
9 You who bring good news to Zion,
go up on a high mountain.
You who bring good news to Jerusalem,[c]
lift up your voice with a shout,
lift it up, do not be afraid;
say to the towns of Judah,
“Here is your God!”
People fade and fall. Our glory is fleeting and transient. God’s Word endures forever. And so the message of the prophet is quite simply this:
“Here is your God!” – which isn’t quite right as a translation. The Hebrew is hard to translate. Old versions say “Behold your God!” – but “behold” isn’t exactly common English today – the closest we can get is to paraphrase something like:
“Pay attention! Look! Here is your God”
The prophet is to show the people their God. Which is exactly what he does in the coming verses. Verse by verse showing the tender care and awesome power of this God. To a group of people sitting in exile in Babylon, wondering if God has finally given up on them after all he gives, not answers, not explanations, but a fresh vision of the God who has not abandoned them and not given up on them.
A fresh vision of the God who is a tender shepherd, and the Almighty Creator of the stars. It is this vision that is taken up and echoed by John the Baptist as he preaches in Judea and baptises in the Jordan river. He is the voice echoing in the wilderness, and he is the voice who cries “Behold the Lamb of God!”
To a people in darkness, who have given up hope, comes John’s announcement that God has acted. John’s message points us to the reality that in Jesus we see this God come to us. A way has been made for God to come to us. The reality that Isaiah 40 speaks into our hearts becomes a reality because of Jesus.
And so in Advent as we come together as church communities to remember the coming of Jesus, and to look forward to his coming again we need to remember that this message is what we need. That the one who speaks God’s word is called above and before everything else to cry “Behold, Your God!” “Behold, the Lamb!”
Those of us sitting in pews and chairs in churches this advent, or watching a screen from our armchairs need most of all this Christmas, in the darkness and despair of 2021, to hear people who will point out God to us. We need our ministers and pastors and preachers to be those who will show us Jesus. We don’t need new strategies and plans – or at least we don’t need those yet. First of all we need Jesus. First of all we need to see our God afresh.
Once we see this God afresh, then we can begin to see the difference that should make in our lives, and the lives of our communities – but first we need to see this God, first we need a fresh vision of who our God is and what it is like when he comes.
And so hopefully during Advent I will do some more digging into these chapters in Isaiah 40-55 and show more of what we see of our God here. But for now, we need simply to stop and listen. Perhaps to these words of the end of Isaiah 40:
27 Why do you complain, Jacob?
Why do you say, Israel,
“My way is hidden from the Lord;
my cause is disregarded by my God”?
28 Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.
29 He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
30 Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
31 but those who hope in the Lord
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.
When we see this God afresh we will long to point others to him. And in order to see this God afresh week by week we need teachers, preachers, leaders and friends who will have the passion that the following Charles Wesley hymn shows so clearly:
1 Jesus, the Name high over all,
in hell or earth or sky;
angels and mortals prostrate fall,
and devils fear and fly.
Jesus, the Name to sinners dear,
the Name to sinners giv’n;
it scatters all their guilty fear,
it turns their hell to heav’n.2 O that the world might taste and see
the riches of His grace!
The arms of love that compass me
would all the world embrace.
Thee I shall constantly proclaim,
though earth and hell oppose;
bold to confess Thy glorious Name
before a world of foes.3 His only righteousness I show,
His saving truth proclaim;
’tis all my business here below
to cry, “Behold the Lamb!”
Happy, if with my latest breath
I may but gasp His Name,
preach Him to all, and cry in death,
“Behold, behold the Lamb!”
Joshua's Tree Rooted 