433 years.
It seems like a long time, right? Four whole centuries of history and culture and ideas. It's certainly longer than the United States has been around as a country. I'm sure when Lincoln was saying 'four score and seven years,' he was wishing it was more like 'twenty-one score and three years.' At least there would be some meat on the country's bones, then.
But it's also a really short time when you're looking at the whole scope of history. (Even with a young Earth perspective.) That's potentially just four people living their lives in succession. It's not even half of England's existence.
To the author of Lamentations, it was too short a time by far.
See, 433 years (give or take a few) is how long the kingdom of Israel lasted. And yes, I know there was a civil war and then technically two kingdoms, but let's ignore that for a moment and just consider Jerusalem as the symbol of this idea of one united people, God's people.
It started out well. Ish. Saul brought them all together and then David brought them power and fame. Solomon really cemented the deal. People came from all over the known world in order to see what his secret was. Jerusalem was the place to be.
And then...
Then the kingdoms split. They were still individually powerful. Just not as powerful as they had been together. And of course, they alternated between fighting each other and fighting their neighbors. They went back and forth (Judah more than Israel) between following God and following their own depravity.
Then Israel ceased to exist. And Judah (and Jerusalem) were in a real pickle. Because if the existence of Israel had weakened them, it's non-existence was like a mortal wound.
Before too long, Judah was reduced to a city. Jerusalem was the last vanguard. But it was more like a prison for its inhabitants. And in 587 B.C., Nebuchadnezzar came along and left no stone unturned.
"How deserted lies the city, once so full of people! How like a widow is she, who once was great among the nations! She who was queen among the provinces has now become a slave ... Her foes have become her masters; her enemies are at ease. The Lord has brought her grief because of her many sins."
In just 433 years, Jerusalem went from being the shining city on a hill to the dust beneath her enemies' feet.
There's probably a lesson to be learned, there.
I've been reading through the Bible this year. I'm not doing it chronologically or in book order. I'm reading a little of the Old Testament, a little of the New Testament, a little of Psalms, and a little of Proverbs. It makes for an interesting juxtaposition, sometimes. For example, I was reading Lamentations at the same time I was reading Hebrews.
Hebrews covers a lot of ground. Everyone remembers the 'by faith' chapter, but there are also many warnings about the dangers of falling away. So while I'm reading about faithful people and being told of the many pitfalls, I'm also reading about a city and people that didn't heed those same warnings made 500 years earlier.
And then you come to Lamentations 3. (Which I'd love to read in the original Hebrew, btw. It's an acrostic poem. Jeremiah was a very gifted individual.)
At first, it's more of the same. Lamentations is a lament, after all. (In Hebrew, the title sounds like a longsuffering sigh, apparently.) Jeremiah has just spent 52 chapters warning people about what was going to happen because of their sin. It's not even a warning to turn back. It's a reminder that they had their chance, they will be punished, and if they want anyone to be left after the city is conquered, they'd better shape up - only to be forced to sit back and watch all of the things he'd been talking about come to pass.
So yeah. He's been through a lot.
In fact, Jeremiah is literally at the end of his rope. "I remember my affliction and my wandering," he says, "the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me." He says a few verses earlier that he'd forgotten any good thing that might have happened to him. This is a man who has been beaten down by his own, forced to record his city's destruction by his enemy, and he's nearing the end of his life. He reached bedrock and was forced to keep digging.
And yet...
"Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, 'The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him'."
Hold up. He has hope? How? Everything these people have worked for is gone. No country, no home, they are literally slaves again. Everyone who was fawning over them before is now laughing in their face. What hope is there?
"The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him."
Oh. So our hope isn't in a city. It isn't in a government, our family, a job, weapon, food, exercise, a car.
No.
Our hope is in the Lord. We have hope when we seek him. Everything else is incidental.
That's not to say there won't be bad times. Of course there are. I can control exactly one person, myself, and even then, I'm not very good at it. Take a look at Adam and Eve if you doubt it. Sure, they were tempted. But it didn't take a lot to get them to abandon whatever common sense or fear of God they had for the chance to be something more. So yeah, we can screw things up by ourselves just fine. We can already see what happens when 7 billion people are working in their own self interest at the same time.
But regardless of what happens, whatever bedrock we hit, we have hope. "For no one is cast off by the Lord forever. Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love. For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to anyone."
That last verse threw me off for a bit. It's the classic 'why do bad things happen' question. I already answered part of it. But God is God, right? Why couldn't he just make things easier for everyone?
Well, ironically, because God is God. Because of who he is, there are certain rules to the universe that can't change. Peter tells us that God doesn't want anyone to perish, but because of who he is, he has to let it happen. We make a choice. If God changed the rules, he wouldn't be God, and there wouldn't by any reason to worship a god who is fickle and unreliable. I'm glad there are rules. It lets me know where I stand.
So no, he doesn't want there to be affliction and grief. But he'll allow it. He'll even cause it if there's a chance of us waking up and acknowledging his rightful place as ruler of the universe. As Jeremiah says, "Why should the living complain when punished for their sins?"
If Lamentations were being written in today's church culture, it would end with chapter 3. "Sure, lots of bad things have happened. We're at the end of the line. It could probably get worse, but we don't really see how. And we're not really sure how it could get better, either. But we know it will because God is with us. He has punished us for our sins, but even in doing so, he has shown compassion. He will lift us up once more, and he will wipe out our enemies. We will have vengeance on those who persecuted us! Happy days are here again!"
There's a clear plot line. We like things to be neatly sewn up with us rightly in our position of power, honor, and righteousness again.
Except Lamentations doesn't end with chapter 3. The fourth chapter, while still using poetic language, gets even more explicit about what has been lost.
Precious gems and jewelry? Tarnished. Scattered. Stolen.
Children? Starving. Helpless. Being eaten by their parents.
Public officials? Sticks. Dust. Unrecognizable.
Priests? Unclean. Dishonored. Outcasts.
Everything we held dear, everything we thought would always be true, every dream and hope we had for a future - all of it turned to ash. We thought we were hot stuff because God was on our side from the start. It didn't matter that we turned aside and pursued other gods. Surely God would still protect us. Why bother continuing to seek after him when we can simply trust that the foundation he laid will stand up to us constantly chipping away at it?
Are you picking up what I'm laying down?
Jeremiah finished up with a prayer. Does he still believe what he said back in chapter 3? Absolutely. But he has to deal with his current reality. He can't linger on a nebulous future he may never see in this life. Life for him at this moment is just really not good. "Joy has gone from our hearts; our dancing has turned to mourning."
There's this joke that Mark Lowry likes to tell about his favorite verse. He says that it is this: "And it came to pass..." That's it. It came. And then it passed. My sister says this to me all the time, but especially when things aren't going well. "It's going to pass! Things will get better."
And sure. I know that. Deep down, I am fully cognizant of this fact.
But before it passes, I have to live with it. I can't ignore the fact of what is for the hope of what will be. Because if I don't deal with why something is the way it is, the way things are is the way things will continue to be, and that future I'm counting on is going to start getting further and further away.
Which is when Jeremiah's last though should really start to worry us. He ends his prayer by asking God to "restore us to yourself ... that we may return." Awesome. Let's do that. "Renew our days as of old," right, with you so far, "unless you have utterly rejected us and are angry with us beyond measure."
Oh. Well, crap.
Don't forget this critical point: God does not want us to perish. But it can happen. Whether by the firm dismissal of Truth or the slow attrition of time, we can absolutely come to a point of complete separation from God.
It's a sobering thought. It's the thought that is constantly in the back of my mind. I know, in theory, what separation from God means. I don't ever want to know it in practice. And I don't want that for others, either.
This is my reality. Because while I have hope, there are so many who don't. Everything I do works toward the goal of making my hope a reality for others even as they deal with this present darkness.
No one wants to live in the world of Lamentations. Jeremiah never wanted to have to write this book. But he did. And I think we're headed in that direction.
It seems like a long time, right? Four whole centuries of history and culture and ideas. It's certainly longer than the United States has been around as a country. I'm sure when Lincoln was saying 'four score and seven years,' he was wishing it was more like 'twenty-one score and three years.' At least there would be some meat on the country's bones, then.
But it's also a really short time when you're looking at the whole scope of history. (Even with a young Earth perspective.) That's potentially just four people living their lives in succession. It's not even half of England's existence.
To the author of Lamentations, it was too short a time by far.
See, 433 years (give or take a few) is how long the kingdom of Israel lasted. And yes, I know there was a civil war and then technically two kingdoms, but let's ignore that for a moment and just consider Jerusalem as the symbol of this idea of one united people, God's people.
It started out well. Ish. Saul brought them all together and then David brought them power and fame. Solomon really cemented the deal. People came from all over the known world in order to see what his secret was. Jerusalem was the place to be.
And then...
Then the kingdoms split. They were still individually powerful. Just not as powerful as they had been together. And of course, they alternated between fighting each other and fighting their neighbors. They went back and forth (Judah more than Israel) between following God and following their own depravity.
Then Israel ceased to exist. And Judah (and Jerusalem) were in a real pickle. Because if the existence of Israel had weakened them, it's non-existence was like a mortal wound.
Before too long, Judah was reduced to a city. Jerusalem was the last vanguard. But it was more like a prison for its inhabitants. And in 587 B.C., Nebuchadnezzar came along and left no stone unturned.
"How deserted lies the city, once so full of people! How like a widow is she, who once was great among the nations! She who was queen among the provinces has now become a slave ... Her foes have become her masters; her enemies are at ease. The Lord has brought her grief because of her many sins."
In just 433 years, Jerusalem went from being the shining city on a hill to the dust beneath her enemies' feet.
There's probably a lesson to be learned, there.
I've been reading through the Bible this year. I'm not doing it chronologically or in book order. I'm reading a little of the Old Testament, a little of the New Testament, a little of Psalms, and a little of Proverbs. It makes for an interesting juxtaposition, sometimes. For example, I was reading Lamentations at the same time I was reading Hebrews.
Hebrews covers a lot of ground. Everyone remembers the 'by faith' chapter, but there are also many warnings about the dangers of falling away. So while I'm reading about faithful people and being told of the many pitfalls, I'm also reading about a city and people that didn't heed those same warnings made 500 years earlier.
And then you come to Lamentations 3. (Which I'd love to read in the original Hebrew, btw. It's an acrostic poem. Jeremiah was a very gifted individual.)
At first, it's more of the same. Lamentations is a lament, after all. (In Hebrew, the title sounds like a longsuffering sigh, apparently.) Jeremiah has just spent 52 chapters warning people about what was going to happen because of their sin. It's not even a warning to turn back. It's a reminder that they had their chance, they will be punished, and if they want anyone to be left after the city is conquered, they'd better shape up - only to be forced to sit back and watch all of the things he'd been talking about come to pass.
So yeah. He's been through a lot.
In fact, Jeremiah is literally at the end of his rope. "I remember my affliction and my wandering," he says, "the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me." He says a few verses earlier that he'd forgotten any good thing that might have happened to him. This is a man who has been beaten down by his own, forced to record his city's destruction by his enemy, and he's nearing the end of his life. He reached bedrock and was forced to keep digging.
And yet...
"Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, 'The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him'."
Hold up. He has hope? How? Everything these people have worked for is gone. No country, no home, they are literally slaves again. Everyone who was fawning over them before is now laughing in their face. What hope is there?
"The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him."
Oh. So our hope isn't in a city. It isn't in a government, our family, a job, weapon, food, exercise, a car.
No.
Our hope is in the Lord. We have hope when we seek him. Everything else is incidental.
That's not to say there won't be bad times. Of course there are. I can control exactly one person, myself, and even then, I'm not very good at it. Take a look at Adam and Eve if you doubt it. Sure, they were tempted. But it didn't take a lot to get them to abandon whatever common sense or fear of God they had for the chance to be something more. So yeah, we can screw things up by ourselves just fine. We can already see what happens when 7 billion people are working in their own self interest at the same time.
But regardless of what happens, whatever bedrock we hit, we have hope. "For no one is cast off by the Lord forever. Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love. For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to anyone."
That last verse threw me off for a bit. It's the classic 'why do bad things happen' question. I already answered part of it. But God is God, right? Why couldn't he just make things easier for everyone?
Well, ironically, because God is God. Because of who he is, there are certain rules to the universe that can't change. Peter tells us that God doesn't want anyone to perish, but because of who he is, he has to let it happen. We make a choice. If God changed the rules, he wouldn't be God, and there wouldn't by any reason to worship a god who is fickle and unreliable. I'm glad there are rules. It lets me know where I stand.
So no, he doesn't want there to be affliction and grief. But he'll allow it. He'll even cause it if there's a chance of us waking up and acknowledging his rightful place as ruler of the universe. As Jeremiah says, "Why should the living complain when punished for their sins?"
If Lamentations were being written in today's church culture, it would end with chapter 3. "Sure, lots of bad things have happened. We're at the end of the line. It could probably get worse, but we don't really see how. And we're not really sure how it could get better, either. But we know it will because God is with us. He has punished us for our sins, but even in doing so, he has shown compassion. He will lift us up once more, and he will wipe out our enemies. We will have vengeance on those who persecuted us! Happy days are here again!"
There's a clear plot line. We like things to be neatly sewn up with us rightly in our position of power, honor, and righteousness again.
Except Lamentations doesn't end with chapter 3. The fourth chapter, while still using poetic language, gets even more explicit about what has been lost.
Precious gems and jewelry? Tarnished. Scattered. Stolen.
Children? Starving. Helpless. Being eaten by their parents.
Public officials? Sticks. Dust. Unrecognizable.
Priests? Unclean. Dishonored. Outcasts.
Everything we held dear, everything we thought would always be true, every dream and hope we had for a future - all of it turned to ash. We thought we were hot stuff because God was on our side from the start. It didn't matter that we turned aside and pursued other gods. Surely God would still protect us. Why bother continuing to seek after him when we can simply trust that the foundation he laid will stand up to us constantly chipping away at it?
Are you picking up what I'm laying down?
Jeremiah finished up with a prayer. Does he still believe what he said back in chapter 3? Absolutely. But he has to deal with his current reality. He can't linger on a nebulous future he may never see in this life. Life for him at this moment is just really not good. "Joy has gone from our hearts; our dancing has turned to mourning."
There's this joke that Mark Lowry likes to tell about his favorite verse. He says that it is this: "And it came to pass..." That's it. It came. And then it passed. My sister says this to me all the time, but especially when things aren't going well. "It's going to pass! Things will get better."
And sure. I know that. Deep down, I am fully cognizant of this fact.
But before it passes, I have to live with it. I can't ignore the fact of what is for the hope of what will be. Because if I don't deal with why something is the way it is, the way things are is the way things will continue to be, and that future I'm counting on is going to start getting further and further away.
Which is when Jeremiah's last though should really start to worry us. He ends his prayer by asking God to "restore us to yourself ... that we may return." Awesome. Let's do that. "Renew our days as of old," right, with you so far, "unless you have utterly rejected us and are angry with us beyond measure."
Oh. Well, crap.
Don't forget this critical point: God does not want us to perish. But it can happen. Whether by the firm dismissal of Truth or the slow attrition of time, we can absolutely come to a point of complete separation from God.
It's a sobering thought. It's the thought that is constantly in the back of my mind. I know, in theory, what separation from God means. I don't ever want to know it in practice. And I don't want that for others, either.
This is my reality. Because while I have hope, there are so many who don't. Everything I do works toward the goal of making my hope a reality for others even as they deal with this present darkness.
No one wants to live in the world of Lamentations. Jeremiah never wanted to have to write this book. But he did. And I think we're headed in that direction.
