In the darkest time of my life thus far, a friend advised a book: Michael Card’s “A Sacred Sorrow: Reaching Out to God in the Lost Language of Lament.” I learned the lost language, and it helped me immensely. But last year, when meeting dear Christian friends whose only son had just died in his late 20s, I counseled lament, and I was found wanting. Afterward, I resolved to understand lament better, and what better way than to memorize Lamentations 3?
The Bible is full of lament: Moses laments, David laments, the prophets lament, Jesus laments. And of them all, Jeremiah’s Lamentations is the deepest and longest, and Lamentations 3 is its heart. Jeremiah wrote Lamentations to lament the fall of Jerusalem, the city the LORD had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel to put his name. By Jeremiah’s time, Jerusalem had been Israel’s capitol for 400 years, and not just its capitol, but the center of worship. Lamentations is an acrostic poem: the first, second, and fourth chapters consist of 22 verses, one verse for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Chapter 3, the heart of the book, contains 66 verses. It’s still an acrostic but in a different way: three verses in a row begin with the same Hebrew letter, and the next three begin with the next Hebrew letter, and so on. Chapters 1 and 2 describe the destruction of Jerusalem vividly and attribute it to God’s action. Chapter 3 changes the subject. Jeremiah describes his life during the devastation: an object of God’s wrath. He begins,
“I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. He has driven me away and made me walk in darkness rather than light; indeed, he has turned his hand against me again and again, all day long. He has made my skin and my flesh grow old and has broken my bones. He has besieged me and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship. He has made me dwell in darkness like those long dead.” (Lamentations 3:1-6)
This description of deep suffering at God’s hand continues for 20 verses. It encompasses his body, mind, and emotions. By the end, there seems to be nothing left. He closes:
“I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me.” (Lamentations 3:19-20)
This is lament: describing in vivid detail the devastation you’ve undergone and declaring to God that his will and desire have been utterly broken. It’s truthful and bold, and it’s accompanied by tears and intense sorrow. And when it’s fully out, you’re on a brink, a knife edge with despair on one side drawing you to a logical abyss. And what’s on the other?
“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.” (Lamentations 3:22-23)
At the brink, Jeremiah shirks despair and chooses hope. He finds hope in the LORD himself. He used the verbs afflicted (1), besieged (5), surrounded (5), barred (9), mangled (11), broken (16), and deprived (17) before, and now he hopes.
In these verses and those following his hope focuses on three central characteristics of God: love, compassion, and faithfulness. And they are vast: great (23), never-failing (23), ever-renewing (23). And with this focus, he decides “it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD” (Lamentations 3:26) and is grateful he bore the yoke of God’s wrath in his youth when he could endure and see salvation later. He concludes,
“For men are not 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 the children of men.” (Lamentations 3:31-33)
I smile to see the lament of laments breaks from lament in its very center. In fact, almost all Bible laments break into hope. That hope is found in God, God alone. His clearly near presence and his ineffably good character result in hope: a hope so strong, it pulls you from the brink of despair through neutrality to gratefulness.
How do you, a Christian, respond to tragedy? Do you fake, saying “All things work together for good,” preferring to embrace far-off or inapplicable truth over the actual truth? Do you ignore, summing considerable strength to put tragedy behind you, preferring to pretend it didn’t happen instead of contemplating the check to your understanding. Do you question, asking “Where is God?”, “Why did God allow this?”, “Does God care?”, and maybe even, “Does God exist?” I didn’t write this essay for the faker or ignorer. Our God is fundamentally a God of truth; thus, reality must be the test-bed for our faith. I wrote this essay for the questioner.
Notice the faith implicit in Jeremiah’s laments. He firmly believes in God’s existence, power, and goodness, and he has an intimate relationship with him. For questioners with that level of faith, follow Jeremiah’s lead and lament. It’s truthful, faithful, bold, and, above all, Biblical. In lament, affliction may still beset you, pain may still harm you, trouble may still surround you, but in it all, he will grant you his presence, and when you truly feel his presence, that is enough. It’s a presence so near and sufficient that you find hope, hope in the LORD’s great love, compassion, and faithfulness.
And there is hope for the questioner with less faith, the one who lacks intimacy with him, or the one who asks, “Is God good?”, “Is God all-powerful?”, or “Does God exist?”. We have a tool Jeremiah lacked. We see his faith. God called Jeremiah at a young age (Jeremiah 1). He heard directly from the LORD. The LORD shared with him deep and hidden things. He argued with the LORD (Jeremiah 12, 14-15). He suffered kings’ and nobles’ ridicule (Jeremiah 26, 36) and experienced the LORD’s presence. When Jeremiah says,
“This is what the LORD says: ‘Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,’ declares the LORD.” (Jeremiah 9:23-24)
he is a man who could boast much, for he is the man who understands and knows the LORD. Study the books of Jeremiah and Lamentations. Understand his character and his actions. If you deeply comprehend the facts that led to his faith, you will become more faithful. Why did Jeremiah hope? Because he knew; he knew the LORD with certainty. Do not be afraid to take that step of faith. Adopt Jeremiah’s faith; he’s not leading you astray but giving you a lifeline. Adopt Jeremiah’s faith, and see and experience the one living and holy God whose presence can carry you through immense darkness.