July 25, 2025 - Lamentations 1-5

“How lonely sits the city that was full of people!  How like a widow has she become, she who was great among the nations!  She who was a princess among the provinces has become a slave” (1:1).  Well, just as the Lord’s prophet said, so it has happened.  The book of Lamentations, of course, is full of lament.  The city is destroyed.  The temple has been burned to the ground.  The people have been carried into exile.  Jeremiah sees all this, and though he knew it was coming and prophesied about it, still his heart breaks.  That’s the heart of a true shepherd:  he tells the hard truth, but he takes no sordid delight in what he must proclaim.  He cries out:  “Look, O Lord, and see, for I am despised.  Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?  Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow, which was brought upon me, which the Lord inflicted on the day of his fierce anger” (1:11-12).

Jeremiah understood the righteousness of God's judgment and its necessity.  Still, his sorrow was almost unspeakable.  The heart of a shepherd!  “For these things I weep; my eyes flow with tears; for a comforter is far from me, one to revive my spirit; my children are desolate, for the enemy has prevailed” (1:16).  But here’s his hope:  “For the Lord will not cast off forever, but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love” (3:31,32).  The shepherd’s hope!

God of our life, through all the circling years, we trust in you;

in all the past, through all our hopes and fears, your hand we view.

With each new day, when morning lifts the veil,

we own your mercies, Lord, which never fail.

God of the past, our times are in your hand; with us abide.

Lead us by faith, to hope's true Promised Land; be now our guide.

With you to bless, the darkness shines as light,

and faith’s fair vision changes into sight.   --Hugh Thomson Kerr (1916)