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28th October 2024
MondayReflection
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'John C. Holbert'
'a local church pastor in Louisiana, '
"His mercies are new every
morning"
Commentary on Lamentations 3:22-33
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The small poetic book of Lamentations was composed during the fall of Jerusalem to the invading Babylonian armies in the early years of the sixth century BCE.
Ongoing Jewish tradition enshrines this history by reading the book on the day on which the final fall of the Jerusalem temple in 70 C.E. is remembered.
It is a solemn day, when hopes seem distant and God silent.
One can readily imagine that this device was an aid to memory, as the poems were chanted and sung in places of worship.
Some important ideas about the nature of suffering, and the role of God in that suffering, appear.
At first, the language sounds like the stock vocabulary of the lament psalms.
However, when the poem is connected to the fall of Jerusalem and the apparent end of the nation of Israel, the language is more appropriate than first appears.
This is a vivid description of ancient siege warfare, culminating in the destruction of buildings and the slaughter of inhabitants.
When a singer remembers the fall of Zion, such language resonates with stark reality and deepens the anguish of fear and lost hope.
The poem unashamedly ascribes the horrors directly to God.
It begins,
"I am one who knows what it is to be punished by God."
..... Lamentations 3:1
God has brought Jerusalem's disaster.
Whether we believe God causes such pains or not, we can agree with the ancients that in life, chaos always threatens the order of things.
Death is ever ready to swallow life.
These texts will not help us argue the origins of the world's agonies, but they will help us reflect on what we can do to face them and live with their reality.
This may be the most important lesson we need to learn.
When hopelessness seems complete, the singer cries,
" I do not have much longer to live; my hope in the Lord is gone."
But just three verses later, there is an astonishing transformation.
"This I call to mind; and therefore I have hope" (3:21).
What "this" is becomes the key to the rest of the poem.
It stands as the first word of the line rather than the verb that usually begins sentences in Hebrew; therefore, "this" is emphasized.
The first word of verse 22 is central.
It is the plural form of the Hebrew 'chesed', a word notoriously difficult to translate.
It might be read "unbreakable devotion to the promise."
'Chesed' best defines the basic nature of God.
But the fact that 'chesed' is in the plural suggests it is not some generalized, unspecified good feeling, but rather actual deeds that reveal the realities of unbreakable devotion.
Verse 22 reads,
"The steadfast love ('chesed') of the Lord never ceases,"
although the Hebrew text might better be read "Ah, the steadfast deeds of the Lord! We will never be cut off!"
The parallel line of the verse 22 is:
"God's mercies never come to an end."
Remarkably, the word "mercy" is based on the Hebrew word for "womb."
When the poets reached for a word to best describe the astonishing mercy of God, they fastened on a woman's womb, imagining God's love to be like that unique love shared by a woman for her child.
In the midst of life's certain pains, we must fix our minds on the unbreakable and active womb love of our God.
Only in that love will we find hope in our hopelessness, the promise of joy in our sorrows.
Verse 23 reminds us that this unbreakable love, expressed in deeds of mercy, is
"new every morning: great is your
faithfulness."
The 1923 hymn, "Great is Thy Faithfulness," beautifully captures the wonder of these convictions about God in stirring word and tune.
The Lord is all I have, and so in him I put my hope.
sings verse 24.
The poet's history with God has convinced the singer that God is in fact fully present.
Even in the deepest despair, faithful waiting is justified.
Silence in the face of realities, however difficult, suggests that accepting the situation for what it is can be the first step to wholeness and renewed hope.
"For the Lord will not reject forever" (verse 31).
However dark the night, however deep the fear, however hopeless the situation, we rely on the steadfast love of God and give ourselves over to the One who is always the source of our hope.
Great is God's faithfulness indeed!
><(((°>
This is an edited version.
The full article and Bible references are avaiable on request
'John C. Holbert'
was born in Indiana, raised in Arizona, and educated in Iowa and Texas, receiving a Ph.D. in Old Testament in 1975.
He has been a local church pastor in Louisiana, professor of religion at Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth,
and is now Lois Craddock Perkins Professor of Homiletics at Perkins School of Theology,
where he joined the faculty in 1979.
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