Lamentations 3 – Poet in Shock

It was hopeless.  Babylonians were standing at the gate of Jerusalem, about to take the city and take everyone in it into captivity in a distant foreign land. 

It was hopeless.  Jeremiah spoke for God to people who would not change, who wouldn’t even listen, who were so angered by Jeremiah’s message they hunted me like a bird and tried to end my life in a pit (Lam. 3:52-53).

It was hopeless.  Jeremiah played by the rules.  Did what was right.  Answered God’s call on his life.  And this is where it got him.  When I call out or cry for help, he shuts out my prayer (Lam. 3:1).  Even God abandoned him. 

But his beautiful song of sorrow insists that even when everything you’ve ever hoped for is gone (Lam. 3:18), there is still hope.  Because God’s compassion is unfailing and new every morning.  Because God is faithful.  Because God is God.   (Lamentations 3:21-24 – verses worth memorizing.)

Jeremiah was called the weeping prophet.  When Babylon conquered Judah, he was not taken into captivity.  Instead he was carried off by a remnant of Jews to Egypt where, tradition says, he continued to speak for God and so was executed by being sawn in two. 

Jeremiah.  Remember him the next time you have a tough day.  Or a tough year.  If Jeremiah says there’s hope, there’s hope.

– Paul Abbott