Lament has been called a "lost art" and it seems to be a spiritual practice we have largely neglected in modern Western Christianity. For the next few weeks, I'm going to share some of the key spiritual truths that the book of Lamentations has to teach us. They are lessons and truths that we might otherwise miss if we try our own shortcuts past suffering.
Lamentations is a book about wrestling. It wrestles with the pain of judgment. It wrestles with all that has been lost. It wrestles with the God who has sent the suffering.
While turning to God as the only source of relief, the author of Lamentations never turns against God.
Lamentations still portrays God as good, even if it doesn't feel that way. Look how the book ends:
You, Lord, reign forever;
your throne endures from generation to generation.
20 Why do you always forget us?
Why do you forsake us so long?
21 Restore us to yourself, Lord, that we may return;
renew our days as of old
22 unless you have utterly rejected us
and are angry with us beyond measure.
(5:19-22)
God is still in control, he is still the one to make this right. He is still good...but the results are up to him. Lamentations reveals a genuine faith - a complete commitment to letting God be God. Ending it ambiguously, "unless you have utterly rejected us...", leaves us with the tension of waiting on God. And that's ok.
God would step by step bring the restoration this book is so hungry for. They are restored back to their land under Ezra and Nehemiah. They are delivered in the inter-testamental period from their Greek aggressors. And finally, some five centuries later, Jesus arrives. The promised Messiah appears to restore the people to their God and inaugurate his Kingdom.
The story of Lamentations leaves things open-ended in the short-term because it leads us to Christ in the long-term. God is still on the throne; he is still good and will make good on his promises to his people.
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