Day 238. Lamentations 3-5

Poem 3
In approaching three laments that make up our reading for today it is important to keep in mind what Martin Luther so often emphasized in his preaching and teaching--that we only discover who God is in context of the cross. We might encounter God anywhere, but it is only in suffering that he reveals himself as who he is.
Poem 3 is a survivor's vision of the desolated city of Jerusalem; everything he sees around him is a source of pain. "My eyes cause me grief at the fate of all the young women of my city" (3:51), he says. Daily life has become a bad dream. The city has become Sheol, the dark netherworld to which the souls of the dead descend, and there God has "made me sit in darkness like the dead of long ago" (3:6). He wanders about in a waking nightmare in which everything is darkness and sadness. God "has driven and brought me into darkness without any light" (3:2), he says. And there his soul dwells among the ruins, "bereft of peace; [he has] forgotten what happiness is" (3:17) In the first part of the poem there is a claustrophobic sense of being shut in a tight place—Is it a tomb? Or is it labyrinth? The LORD "has walled me about so that I cannot escape . . . though I call for help, he shuts out my prayer; he has blocked my ways with hewn
stones, he has made my paths crooked" (3:8-9). Everything is frustration, bitterness, and a profound sense of homelessness (3:19).
But in the midst of this nightmare world he tries to pull himself together and find peace in old assurances—"The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, and his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness" (3:22-23)--that phrase was borrowed as the first line of an old hymn that was one of my mother's favorites. The LORD's punishments are temporary--"though he causes grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love" (3:32). Yet all the while he is trying desperately to believe this, the writer is also experiencing God's silence and apparent lack of mercy—"You have wrapped yourself with anger and pursued us, killing without pity; you have wrapped yourself with a cloud so that no prayer can pass through" (3:43-44). The LORD has apparently turned upon his people and become their enemy--"We have transgressed and rebelled and you have not forgiven" (3:42)
The voice imagines himself being hunted down by his enemies and being buried alive by stoning—"Those who are my enemies without cause have hunted me like a bird; they flung me alive into a pit, and hurled stones on me; water closed over my head; I said, 'I am lost'" (3:52-54). He is being buried alive. He feels himself drowning. Then at the moment when the nightmare threatens to overwhelm him and to become his reality, God comes near when he calls out and says--"Do not fear!" (3:57).
That is the moment when God truly becomes our reality.
Poem 4
The voice in this poem feels the compassion that God does not seem to feel. The brilliant first lines reflect how bad things have gotten—"How the gold has grown dim, how the pure gold is changed! Sacred stones lie scattered at the head of every street" (4:1), he says. Everything is broken. Everything that was decent and good has changed for the worse. People care no more for the "precious children of Zion" than for a cheap earthen pot. Callousness knows neither rank nor station—the children of the noble fare no better than the children of the poor. "Happier were those pierced by the sword than those pierced with hunger" (4:9), the poet laments. They have become cruel and inhuman "like the ostriches in the wilderness" (4:3) that abandon their young without a thought.
This poem reflects the awful toll taken upon the innocent by war. In a siege hunger is felt most cruelly by the youngest--"the tongue of the infant sticks to the roof of its mouth for thirst; the children beg for food, but no one gives them anything" (4:4). Extreme hunger and stress give rise to unheard-of monstrosities—"The hands of compassionate women have boiled their own children" (4:10). How the gold has grown dim, he laments. Society disintegrates under stress—"no honor was shown to priest, no favor to the elders" (4:16). The old sureties dissolve under pressure.
The unimaginable has happened--the Davidic king himself, "the LORD's anointed, the breath of our life," has been "taken in their pits" (4:20). This refers to the fate of King Zedekiah who attempted to escape during the last hours of the siege of Jerusalem and was apprehended by troops of the Babylonian king. He was then blinded, imprisoned "in their pits," and taken away to Babylon never to be heard of again. The people had lived "under his shadow"; they had depended upon his leadership, but now he is gone (4:20). Everyone is gone—the people are carried away into exile.
The exile of the people of Jerusalem will temporary, the voice assures himself; and when their punishment is accomplished, the LORD will release them. But those neighboring people who had rejoiced at the suffering of Jerusalem shall drink the cup of God's wrath to the very dregs (4:21-22).
Poem 5
The acrostic form of the first four poems of Lamentations disintegrates in this one, reflecting perhaps the disintegration of society. Everything is turned up-side-down. "Slaves rule over us" (5:8), the voice laments. There are outrages everywhere-"Women are raped in Zion, virgins in the towns of Judah. Princes are hung up by their hands, no respect is shown to the elders. Young men are compelled to grind, and boys stagger under loads of wood" (5:11-13). A profound heart-sickness has settled upon those who remain in the destroyed city, struggling to exist--"because of this our hearts are sick," the voice complains. "Because of these things our eyes have grown dim: because of Mount Zion, which lies desolate" (5:17). And the Book of Lamentations ends with two questions that reflect the doubt and uncertainty of those under extreme and near unbearable stress--LORD, "why have you forgotten us completely? Why have you forsaken us these many
days" (5:20). If you have not forgotten and forsaken us, then restore us, O LORD. If "you have utterly rejected us and are angry with us beyond measure" (5:22), then our lives retain no meaning and we are in effect dead.