What can I say about you? Who has ever seen such sorrow? O daughter of Jerusalem, to what can I compare your anguish? O virgin daughter of Zion, how can I comfort you? For your wound is as deep as the sea. Who can heal you? Your prophets have said so many foolish things, false to the core. They did not save you from exile by pointing out your sins. Instead, they painted false pictures, filling you with false hope. All who pass by jeer at you. They scoff and insult beautiful Jerusalem, saying, “Is this the city called ‘Most Beautiful in All the World’ and ‘Joy of All the Earth’?” All your enemies mock you. They scoff and snarl and say, “We have destroyed her at last! We have long waited for this day, and it is finally here!” But it is the Lord who did just as he planned. He has fulfilled the promises of disaster he made long ago. He has destroyed Jerusalem without mercy. He has caused her enemies to gloat over her and has given them power over her. Lamentations 2:13-17
The prophet Jeremiah is generally
accepted to be the author of Lamentations.
His is not a message positivity thinkers would appreciate. Truth be told, Jeremiah had little positive
affirmation in his life. Every time he
opened his mouth to speak the Word of God to God’s people, he either developed
a new enemy (or a few thousand) or got thrown in prison. Church tradition suggests he was stoned to
death for heresy by Jewish leaders in Egypt. He spent a lot of time waiting for the
hangman.
In that waiting Jeremiah saw clearly
what national catastrophe looks like. In
the case of Jerusalem, the prophet predicted, and lived to see the day when
that beautiful city of God set on a hill was defeated and destroyed, its
citizens reduced to either slavery or starvation, or both. And what the prophet said about it all must
have been like salt rubbed in the wounds.
It wasn’t unfair; it wasn’t God abandoning His covenant, or somehow
falling-down on the job. It was God
fulfilling His covenantal promises that, if Israel served God faithfully, His
promises were of life, strength, and a never-ending sense of peace and
joy. On the other side of that coin of
promise was a warning, that if they served other gods, they would experience
the wrath of judgment. It wasn’t hard
for Jeremiah to connect the dots; Israel had wandered into the far country of
idolatry and sin.
James Russell Lowell penned the famous
words concerning truth and wrong, particularly in public life, and poignant for
any nation:
Perhaps Lowell had Jeremiah’s day in
mind when he wrote this, but it certainly looms larger over the next four years
(or any moment in time) than any appraisal of the economy, international
relations, poverty or justice, compared to what God is doing in plain sight to
a nation so divided and angry.
In America we are busy electing our
governmental leaders for the next cycle.
As of this writing it’s unclear who will be president or control the
Congress. But one thing is clear –
whoever sits in a Senator’s chair, or at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office,
that person will not be without sin. The
real question is whether the people who are ruled by the elected leaders will
take truth off the scaffold and send the hangman to remove wrong from the
throne.
Now, I am not suggesting a bloody
revolution – indeed, just the opposite.
I am suggesting what another prophet (probably Ezra) wrote about the
government of Israel and how they were falling into worshipping other gods, and
the only true path the people can take to extricate themselves from impending
judgment:
Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land. 2 Chronicles 7:14
For You Today
You chew on that as you hit the Rocky
Road; have a blessed day!
Title image: via Wikimedia Rembrandt (in public domain) W Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©
For other posts on 1 Peter 2:13-17 see: An Honorable Life and
Honorable Behavior - Part 2
