In the last post I introduced the theme and structure of Lamentations. Now it is important to sit with the reality of the text itself. We need to read, and we need to sit with what it says, and listen to it. It will be important to situate it in the context of the whole of Scripture, but first we need to listen to its unique contribution. 

I am going to comment on a few verses at a time. It will not be an exhaustive commentary – there are other places to go for that, but aim is to reflect on the text in the light of our world and encourage us that there is much benefit in sitting with less frequently used texts such as Lamentations.

I will often use Yahweh to refer to God – this is our best guess at the Hebrew pronunciation of the name of God revealed to Moses at the burning bush, usually written LORD in our English Bibles. I do this because it reinforces the reality that God has a name, not simply a title. He is personal and relational – yet the fact that we do not know the pronunciation for certain reminds us of the mystery involved in knowing this God. 

v1-3 The end of the story?

Jerusalem is portrayed here as a woman, widowed and left all alone. A once thriving city is now deserted. The city of David and Solomon which claimed the allegiance of kingdoms represent a vast expanse of land has come crashing down. There is no one left to bring comfort, in a bitter irony her lovers and friends have deserted her. The predictions of prophets such as Jeremiah have come all too true. 

Judah is exiled, overtaken by her enemies, with no place to rest. The story is, to all intents and purposes, over. Israel’s story began with a song of praise to Yahweh at the parting of the Red Sea, rejoicing over the certainty that Yahweh would bring them to a resting place, a place of security – his holy dwelling. Now that is gone, and only despair remains.

v4-6 Desolation

There is mourning, there is grief. There are no festivals any more. Just desolation, groaning priests and grieving women, at the ‘bitter anguish’ of Jerusalem.  Perhaps the most bitter part of this reality is that Yahweh has done this. Yahweh has brought grief because of sin. The exile was promised from the beginning, and Yahweh had shown patience upon patience with his people, but now the promised punishment had happened. 

At this point it is worth reflecting on those times when we face situations where the consequences of our sins are visiting us with a fury we had not anticipated. Perhaps a character flaw we have never addressed has consequences we would never have desired. In such times we can express our perplexity and sorrow before God. 

v7-11 Look! See!

The next verses are characterised by the word ‘look’. Jerusalem’s enemies look on her, while Jerusalem remembers the past, her enemies look on and laugh at her pitiable state. Her sin has brought her to disgrace. 

These words are hard to read, especially given the portrayal of Jerusalem as a woman. We have to allow ourselves to feel the shock as we read such verses. They are not unique in scripture. God’s people are often portrayed as a woman, and are sometimes portrayed as a woman who is punished and shamed by her husband. 

To understand such a portrayal requires us to step inside a different world, a world that can seem alien and at odds with how we think a Christian should view people. It seems like we are being told that God is part of a system that oppresses women, and thinks that they should be publicly shamed. 

We need to be very clear that nothing in these verses is saying it is good to abuse women. Rather the portrayal of Jerusalem is using language and concepts familiar to ancient readers to illustrate the impact of sin and Yahweh’s punishment. Jerusalem is shamed by this comparison to the state of a woman left exposed because of her adultery – a comparison the first listeners and readers would have understood – without that comparison in any way indicating Yahweh’s approval of such exposure. 

Such imagery needs to be put in the overall context of Scripture’s valuing and affirmation of women. That valuing and affirmation of women sowed the seeds for a moving towards a far higher status and value for women, and gives us the basis for objecting to mistreatment, abuse, bullying and silencing of women today. Sadly, while our ability to recognise barbaric abuse in an ancient text is acute, our ability and sometimes even readiness to solve the problem of abuse and of male violence in our own world is far from acute.

Jerusalem’s fall makes her feel as a woman in that culture would feel when exposed by her husband. She feels alone, naked and vulnerable. It is deeply uncomfortable to read such language and allow ourselves to feel its force. It may be uncomfortable because it reminds us of times we have felt alone, naked and vulnerable. 

It may also be uncomfortable because, as a white western male I have been part of systems and experiences that have left others feeling that way. In that case I have to sit with the discomfort, and face the reality of the world in which we live. I have to ask myself the hard questions of whether my actions or my silence has ever contributed to the suffering of others.

In the verses here we note that Jerusalem has only one place left to turn: Yahweh. While her enemies look on and laugh, she pleads with Yahweh to look on her affliction. She pleads with Yahweh to look and consider her despised state.  She longs to be really seen by her God.

Despite her vulnerability and shame, her prayer revealed two things that deep down she still believes about God:

Yahweh is sovereign. He may not have literally cut Jerusalem down, but he has used the Babylonians to punish his people. When the survivors come to Yahweh they come to the one who has permitted their suffering as a punishment for the sins of the nation. 

Yahweh is good. Yahweh is the compassionate and gracious God who will relent when he sees the suffering of his people. That is why Jerusalem pleads on God to “look”. She knows such action may not be immediate, but she knows that God cannot overlook his people’s sufferings for ever. 

In the midst of any sorrow, any suffering, any confusion, any turmoil this is what we need to recall – our God is sovereign, and our God is good. And yet that awareness does not always bring comfort. It is the reality of just how dark the situation can seem that we will consider in the next section of the lament.

A while ago I posted on the concept of Lament, intended as a introduction to a series on Lamentations. In that introduction I explored the wider concept of lament, and in this post I will focus more specifically on the book of Lamentations itself.

Reading Lamentations is not necessarily immediately straightforward. It is not a book that immediately grabs the comfortable modern western reader. It is five chapters of lament, of expressing distress and anguish directly to God. We are not used to this kind of writing – our songs focus on celebration, not mourning.

Lamentations may also puzzle us because it is expressing distress and anguish at an event that God has explicitly warned people will happen. This event is the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonian empire under Nebuchadnezzar (read the end of 2 Kings). Jeremiah warned of this event multiple times in his prophesying.

My natural (flawed) reaction to this is simply to think: why is the writer of Lamentations spending so much time lamenting and mourning and questioning God over something that God has already said would happen as a punishment for Israel’s sin?

Part of my answer to myself is to reflect on the fact that there are different degrees of culpability in the fall of Jerusalem. The people of Jerusalem and Judah were a mixed group of people, and some of them were faithful to Yahweh. Yet he did not save them out of the destruction of the city.

That partial answer helps me see that the writer is able to lament the destruction of the city even while it was announced ahead of time as God’s punishment on evil. Helpful as such a partial answer might be for me though it is not something that the Bible makes very much of – it is not used as a reason for protest in the Bible.

Another aspect of the fall of Jerusalem that leads to lament in scripture is the reality that God’s punishment on Jerusalem came about through the evil actions of evil men – and it is therefore right to cry out to God in protest at this wicked event. This is the paradox that appalls Habakkuk. A righteous God uses wicked men to accomplish his purposes. This is an, at times, frankly bewildering reality of scripture, and yet if we deny the reality that God does this we will struggle to appreciate the cross.

Why did God do this? And how can a good God do this? I bring a lot of questions in my mind and heart to a text like this. And as we do that it is important to allow this text to push back at my mind and heart. It may be that my assumptions about what God does and does not do need to be tested.

For in our world there is so much material for lament today. There is obviously the huge global public health crisis that is Covid-19. There is the uncovering of so much ugliness and sin in our public lives. That sin however is not confined to the world, it is found in the church as well. The past year seems to have seen scandal follow scandal. Individuals have been exposed as frauds or bullies. The church as a whole has been exposed as far too blind to the lure of the gifted speaker that we are ready to overlook other parts of their character, and speak evil of those who will not overlook those parts.

We have allowed such sins to go on in our midst, and simultaneously we find that our credibility and position is weakened in society at large. And so we come back to God with our heartache and questions over what God is allowing in our world and in our churches.

We also come back to Lamentations as those who have played our part, either by active participation, or, more often, by silent complicity, in the abuse of others (I was struck by Chris Wright making this point in his BST commentary on Lamentations). We have been like the Babylonians destroying Jerusalem.

Throughout the history of the Christian church that has been all too often literally the case in appalling antisemitism. But even if we are free from such obvious wickedness we have often still allowed wrong doing to go unchallenged. Perhaps those of us who are men have stood apart from direct wrong behaviour against women, but failed to challenge attitudes, words and actions that treat women as objects.

Reading Lamentations reminds us of the consequences of treating other people as something less than fearfully and wonderfully made bearers of God’s image. Not only does it give us words to lament our own tragedies, it should give us words that enable us to imagine the world of the abused, the world of the victim, and the world of the sufferer.

It is therefore a vital book for us to read and get to grips with in, a book full of resources to help us navigate the disorientating world in which we find ourselves at this moment in history and in church history.

In order for us to get the help we need from Lamentations, we need to recognise and understand its perspective and to do that we need to understand its structure. Lamentations is five chapters of someone pouring out their heart to God – yet pouring out their heart in a structured way. Each chapter has 22 stanzas (in chapter 1-3 these have three lines in each stanza). In chapter 1-4 each stanza begins with a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet. In chapter 3 each of the lines within the stanza even begin with the same letter of the Hebrew alphabet (and so each line gets its own English verse). In the final chapter the pattern is not followed – although there are still 22 stanzas.

There is a structure and a pattern to the poets grief. In this book we have an A-Z of lament, there is something comprehensive about this. Not that it exhausts everything that can be said, but its structure of completeness means that it somehow represents a full expression of the poets grief. Nothing is held back from God.

Before looking at Lamentations 1 why not pause to write your own lament to God? Choose a situation which weighs heavily on your heart. Write down what you are feeling about it. Include all the questions it raises about God and his work in your mind and heart. Try some method of structuring it – perhaps an acrostic like the poet, perhaps rhyme or rhythm.

Lament.

There is nothing the church needs right now more than the ability for its leaders to lead us in lament.

That, of course, is one of those ridiculous statements people like to make to capture attention. There are 101 things that the church needs right now, and what each individual church needs is different.

And yet, the importance of learning to lament well in a time of brokenness is vital. Why else would the largest single category of Psalms be lament, and why would there be an entire book of the Bible called Lamentations if it was not for the importance of lamenting?

But before progressing further we need to define lament. Lament is a form of prayer, expressing to God our honest thoughts and feelings about our present distress, or the distress of those we love, or of the church as a whole, or the world at large.

That distress might be caused by others, by ourselves, or seem to come directly from the hand of God. It might be betrayal, sickness, bereavement, physical pain, mental anguish or any other host of reasons for distress.

The important thing about lament is that it stops to acknowledge the reality of the pain we are in, the sense of disorientation this brings to our hearts, and the questions it raises in our minds. Lament presses the pause button on our temptations to reach for easy answers and cover our pain. Lament means we refuse to say ‘peace, peace’ where there is no peace – but instead press on to seek what Christ has to say to us in the midst of the disorientation we face.

And that is especially vital when we live in a time of such widespread disorientation. This year is perhaps a year where we are aware of our lack of control like never before, a year where we are aware of how fragile our political systems are like never before and a year where we are aware more and more of how unjust many of our fundamental structures are like never before. In the midst of such a year it is vital that we bring our disorientation and confusion before God.

Over my next series of blog posts we will look at the book of Lamentations. Lamentations was written as a series of laments over the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in 586BC and subsequent exile.

At one level this event was utterly predictable – God’s just punishment on the sin of his people, as warned in Deuteronomy and by the prophets. And yet for those caught up in the event it was utterly disorientating. Any given individual might have had greater or lesser responsibility for the disastrous suffering that fell on the people – and the laments in Lamentations reflect that range – yet for everyone involved that suffering felt like the end of their world.

If nothing else Lamentations and the lament Psalms teach us that the first response to catastrophe and disaster is not to make a new plan and come up with a new strategy (although no doubt we will need to make new plans at some point) – rather it is to come into God’s presence with our questions, our doubts and even our rage and to pour it out to him. In our world of pandemic and all the associated suffering that seems an important thing to remember.

To do that helps to give space to all those wrestling with questions, sorrow and heartache. A space which is often sorely needed in our churches where most of our songs are unremittingly upbeat. Yes we are told to be joyful – but the joy is one that exists in the midst of pain, and is found only by facing the pain. It is not found by denying the existence of pain, or by persuading ourselves that if only we have enough faith we will move out of the pain.

I have another project to work on during February, but I’m hoping to work through Lamentations in March. Meanwhile if you want to find modern songs of lament you could try this group: https://www.theportersgate.com/ whose music I have found very helpful in this season.

If you want to read more about lament then I cannot recommend highly enough this book: https://langhamliterature.org/books/stumbling-toward-zion. This is one of the best books I’ve read in ages. I think its message is critical for today’s church, and the writers journey is one we need to listen to and heed.

O come, Desire of nations, bind
All peoples in one heart and mind;
Bid envy, strife and quarrels cease;
Fill the whole world with heaven’s peace.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

This last verse is self explanatory in so many ways. It speaks of the longing that we have for a better world. It alludes to words first spoke to a weary and disillusioned people by the prophet Haggai:

⁶ “This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. ⁷ I will shake all nations, and what is desired by all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory,’ says the Lord Almighty. ⁸ ‘The silver is mine and the gold is mine,’ declares the Lord Almighty. ⁹ ‘The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house,’ says the Lord Almighty. ‘And in this place I will grant peace,’ declares the Lord Almighty.”

Haggai says this to the exiles who had returned from Babylon to Jerusalem and begun the work of rebuilding the temple. Some of those who remembered the previous temple wept because they remembered the former temple and its glory, and the new temple was nothing by comparison.

The returnees may have come back filled with enthusiasum from prophets like Isaiah and Ezekiel who spoke of a golden age to come when the exile would be ended and God’s glory fill his temple. Yet the reality was that they were a tiny province in a vast empire given permission to rebuild a temple that was the shadow of its fomer self – a temple which God’s glory is never recorded as entering.

In such a context Haggai holds out the hope that Yahweh will one day return to his temple and it will be glorious, and from that place he will grant peace. At his first coming Jesus embodies this promise – entering the temple as a baby carried by his parents, as a child seeking his father’s will, and as a man cleansing it of those who would stop the prayers of others.

By his death on the cross and resurrection from the grave he shows the glory of God and gives peace for all who will receive it. His return will bring the fulfilment of these hopes – the transformation of the world and complete peace.

This is the hope we have, and this it is this hope which creates the longing ache in our hearts for what is to come. A longing that is beautifully and hauntingly echoed in the melody of the tune for O come O come.

This year, more than ever, we are reminded that we do not have everything. We cannot build heaven here and now. We cannot control our world. We need the hope held out in the message of Jesus.

So this year, this Christmas, come once more to the manger. Come and see the reality of God become man that we might become like him. Come and see the one who created all things become a baby, growing and living as one of us. Come and see the God who has walked in our neighbourhoods, who knows what life is like as one of us. The God who is with us, and for us.

Come and wonder once more, and then look up to the armies of angels who came to herald his birth, and realise that one day they will join him as he returns to make his home here. As he returns to make all things new and all things well. Look up and long. Look up and pray “Come Lord Jesus”.

And let that longing spur us on in the ordinary everyday lives to live differently, joyfully, expectantly and wonderingly. Let that longing spur us on to pray for signs of the coming kingdom to be shown in our land, in our towns, in our communities this day. Let us point the way to the coming King as we live lives marked by trust, by hope and by love.

The next verse of O come O come in the version I found refers to the Key of David:

5 O come, O Key of David, come
and open wide our heavenly home.
Make safe for us the heavenward road
and bar the way to death’s abode.

This verse intrigues me because I think there is more to this image of the key of David than it lets on. What we find, when we look closer at scripture is that the key image is especially important for any engaged in almost any kind of ministry or mission activity. We can see this when we look at the two references to the key of David in the Bible.

The first reference is in an obscure corner of Isaiah:

“In that day I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, and I will clothe him with your robe, and will bind your sash on him, and will commit your authority to his hand. And he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David. He shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open. And I will fasten him like a peg in a secure place, and he will become a throne of honour to his father’s house. And they will hang on him the whole honour of his father’s house, the offspring and issue, every small vessel, from the cups to all the flagons. In that day, declares the LORD of hosts, the peg that was fastened in a secure place will give way, and it will be cut down and fall, and the load that was on it will be cut off, for the LORD has spoken.”
(Isaiah 22:20–25 ESV)

Eliakim is to be a steward of Hezekiah, who will be empowered by Yahweh to look after the royal palace in a secure and stable manner. To aid him in this work he will be given the key of the house of David, and what he opens with that key will not be shut, and what he shuts will not be open. If you look at the wider context of the chapter in Isaiah it seems that Eliakim’s predecessor has somehow come under God’s judgement and that Eliakim was now to receive this honoured position of steward.

God’s message to him is one of hope and encouragement to stand firm. In his own strength he may not seem to be very impressive, but the key of the house of David is the key to his work being secure from the schemes of people. What God opens, will stay open – and what God shuts, will stay shut.

It is this context that is picked up on in Revelation, in the letter to the church in Philadelphia:

““And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: ‘The words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens.
“ ‘I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut. I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.”
(Revelation 3:7–8 ESV)

This time it is Jesus who is said to have the key of David. What Jesus opens will never be shut, and what he closes can never be opened. The Philadelphian church is one of only two churches in the letters of Revelation 2-3 whose letter contains no element of rebuke. It doesn’t seem that it would have looked impressive – and yet they held fast and did not deny Jesus.

It is worth reflecting on this in our spheres of ministry. Ultimately it is Jesus who opens the door for our work, and when he opens it, it will stay open. This is important to get rooted in our hearts because often it won’t feel like this. Often it will feel like the door has been shut on us. Or perhaps it feels like we need to give 110% all the time to make sure the door stays open. We fear what will happen if we stop running. We fear that the door will slam shut for our ministry.

This fear is not true. Our call is to listen to what God is saying to the churches, to hear his voice and to obey. It is not to worry about the consequences of that obedience. It is not to fear what people will say, or what they won’t say. It is not to worry that the world will stop turning if we stop moving.

Jesus is the one who holds the key for our work. It is in listening to him, and following his way that we will find reality and hope. If the doors feel closed – or that they will close if we don’t keep holding them open then the remedy is not to push harder. The remedy is to seek Jesus. It is to pray “O come, O key of David, come”, over ourselves, and over those we minister to. To pray that the key of David would open the door we need opening, and close those doors that we do not need to open.

Notice too the promise:

“I am coming soon. Hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown. The one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. Never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name.”
(Revelation 3:11–12 ESV)

Just as Elikaim was made a peg secure in the house of the king, so the church in Philadelphia was promised to be a pillar in God’s temple. This promise is for all who listen to these words, who hold fast to what God has given, and in holding fast overcome.

That holding fast is itself done in God’s strength, through his Spirit in our lives. So allow the key of David to bring a refocusing away from our plans and schemes, our ways to make doors open and close, and instead to focus on Jesus, on his plans and his ways.