Hope in Lamentations

The ramparts were overrun, and the walls were reduced to piles of smoldering rubble. Once proud gates lay toppled, their impenetrable bars snapped like thin cord. The altar and the sanctuary, once the meeting place of God and man, were desecrated, and neither God nor man was anywhere to be seen within the temple. Holy stones lay strewn on every street. Fire played like a rebellious child in the king’s palace, and it too was decimated. Once vibrant and full of life, the city of David, the city of God, now sat in silence, broken and alone.

It was as if the whole city wept.

Where were her lovers now? Where were her friends now? Who might extend a hand and with it comfort her now? Laughing and derision could be heard on the winds from surrounding nations. The God of the Jews had forsaken his people, and this time, it looked like it was forever. This is the city so said to be the joy of all the earth?

The line of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had come to an inglorious end. The children of Israel fainted in the streets for lack of food, their tongues sticking to the roofs of their parched mouths. The milk of nursing mothers had dried up long ago. The lucky children, starved and wasting away as they were, were boiled and turned into their own mothers’ sustenance.

Men who were used to adorning themselves in the finest imported robes now sat in sackcloth and threw dust on their heads while their wives wept and pulled out their hair. Faces of gleaming pearl were now covered in soot. Those who ate at the king’s table now lay rotting in the streets, their skin shriveled up on their bodies like dried fruit, and the daughters of the land were violently ravaged by foreign men.

God had become a monster, a bear waiting in hiding, to his own people. He had turned his bow against them. The siege of the city had been born in his mind, and he had driven the foreign armies from the East with unmatched speed and precision and vigor.

And no one doubted for a second the cause of so much destruction. The prophets had dreamed false visions. Supposedly entrusted with the sacred task of exposing the sins of the people, they scratched itching ears instead and prophesied peace and prosperity when God was calling for repentance. The priests, sworn to stand as guardians and defenders of righteousness and God’s law, had sold their offices for gold and a well-sung reputation. They killed the innocent over trifles, and the people cheered them on as they did it. The king had paved the way for the worshiping of all manner of foreign deities under heaven while spurning the one true God, and God had noticed. And his ax had fallen hard.

And in the midst of all the death, destruction, and desecration, one man, a man who had not gone the way of the king, the false prophets, and the priests, dared to write a poem, a lament for the fall of God’s beloved people. And smack dab in the center of that poem he wrote the words:

But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:

The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in him.”

The Lord is good to those who wait for him,
to the soul who seeks him.
It is good that one should wait quietly
for the salvation of the LORD.
it is good for a man that he bear
the yoke in his youth.

Let him sit alone in silence
when it is laid on him;
let him put his mouth in the dust—
there may yet be hope;
let him give his cheek to the one who strikes,
and let him be filled with insults.

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;
for he does not afflict from his heart
or grieve the children of men.…

Let us test and examine our ways,
and return to the LORD!
Let us lift up our hearts and hands
to God in heaven.…

I called on your name, O LORD,
from the depths of the pit;
you heard my plea, ‘Do not close
your ear to my cry for help!’
You came near when I called on you;
you said, ‘Do not fear!’

If “there may yet be hope” in the midst of the obliteration of God’s people—if even then they can return to the King and find not merely pardon but one who will still their hearts, take up their cause, and fight for them—then perhaps there may yet be hope for you and me even now. No matter where you may find yourself today or what you may have done yesterday, “return to the LORD!” He will not close his ears to your cry for help. Even now he will whisper to you, “Do not fear.”

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. Not even when your entire life lies in shambles all around you. Not even when you’re the one to blame for all the destruction.