Introduction to Lamentations: 3 Reasons Lamentations is Relevant to the Christian Life. Introduction: Good Morning. I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas celebration a couple days ago, I know I did. Before we begin, This past weekend my brother Ron and his son Tony were hunting and fell through some ice. They were stuck there for a little over an hour before they were rescued and as you can imagine they’ll have some physical recovery to do from such a thing. Safe to say, cold water is not always your friend. So, please, would you keep them in your prayers over the next few weeks for the Lord’s healing, in every meaning of that word. I can’t tell you how much I’d appreciate it. November 11th, 1918 marked the end of one of the most tragic and impactful events in world history. WWI cut a swath of suffering and disenfranchisement across the European continent with almost 9 Million Soldiers killed, another 7 million civilians, and a further 21 million wounded or displaced. It was called “The Great War” or “The War to end all Wars.” Of course it didn’t. During the 4 years of battle more than 2500 miles of trenches were dug into European soil. There was on soldier for every 4 inches of trench. These dirty, close quarters lead to the rampant spread of diseases across both sides. By 1918, 60% of all U.S. Army Deaths were due to the Spanish Flu alone. When the War had finally ended and the people of Europe and America were still counting the cost, Irish Poet and Nobel Laureate William Butler Yeats wrote these words: “ Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. 1 Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand.” This poem by Yeats, of which I only read a part, is an example of a Modern Lament. In it he goes about the task of pouring out his own despair, dread, and confusion at the sheer scale of what had happened. It was his way of marking the times, expressing his grief, and struggling to understand. WWI had shaped the borders and the History of all the nations involved. Almost 2500 years before WWI there was another event that would forever shape the history of nations, especially one nation. In 589 BC Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, laid siege to the city of Jerusalem and for 18 months those inside the city were trapped, receiving attack after bloody attack on their walls, all while starving and without any means to get new resources. The siege finally ended in 587 BC when Babylonian armies finally broke through Jerusalem’s mighty walls and flooded the city like a plague, killing and destroying everything in sight. The city was not just conquered but everything of value was plundered and the Temple of Solomon was made into just rubble. Most of the cities thousands of inhabitants were either killed or taken into captivity and marched to Babylon as slaves. The City itself was burned to the ground. 587 BC marked the end of the nation of Israel as the world had known it forever. It is the lowest point for Israel in Old Testament History. In the wake of these events, another poet took to his pen and wrote these words: Turn with me to Lamentations chapter 1: READ LAMENTATIONS 1:1-5 Lamentations is perhaps the most neglected book of Scripture in the Canon, much to our detriment. In my research for this message I found that among the pastors and scholars who most inspire and instruct me, only one had actually preached a message from this book and just a couple more had written about it. But as one of these authors put it, “In a world where the tides of human suffering threatens to overwhelm whatever dykes we put in place to contain it, is there any book of the Bible more relevant than this book which gives voice to the most awful pain 2 imaginable…?” Sure, we sometimes sing a song drawn from Lamentations 3:23, Thomas Chisolm’s hymn “Great is thy faithfulness”. But aside from this, Lamentations is often all but forgotten. So, Today I take the task of introducing you to this wonderful book of the Old Testament and then briefly show you 3 reasons Lamentations is relevant to the Christian life; which also happens to be the title of this message. We won’t have nearly enough time to really reach into the depths of each passage and mine the Gold the Lord has left us there, but we will at least know where it’s from, What role it plays in the Canon of Scripture, and see some ways Lamentations applies to our lives today. Provinence: So, what is a Lament? Our Dictionaries define a Lament as “a passionate expression of grief or sorrow.” Of course a Lament, then, can take any form; song, poem, painting, speech. But in the context of the Canon of Scripture, a Lament takes the form of a Poem and there are many Laments throughout the Old Testament. Jeremiah included several in the book of Jeremiah, notably chapter 14. The prophets Isaiah and Habakkuk both included poems of Lament in their books as did Job. And it may surprise you to learn, the book of Psalms contains the largest number of Lament poems in the Scripture, numbering more than any other literary form in that book. But the most prolific example of this style is, obviously, the book of Lamentations. This book is entirely written in poetic form. The first 4 chapters consist of 4 Acrostic Poems, with 22 stanzas in each poem, though our verse numbering doesn’t always reflect it. Acrostic means the first word of each stanza begins with each letter of the Hebrew alphabet in order. So stanza 1 starts with A, stanza 2 B and so on. Chapter 3 is unique among the 4 because the poet emphasizes this by making each stanza just 3 lines long and starting each of the 3 lines with the same letter. So in our bibles verses 1,2,&3 of chapter 3 would all start with Aleph “A” in the original Hebrew, 4,5 &6 with B and so on. It’s as though the Poet is expressing his grief and sorrow completely, from A to Z. Chapter 5 is not written in acrostic form but consists of a prayer written in the form of a lament poem with a matching 22 stanza structure. 3 You’ve probably noticed by now that I keep calling the author simply “the poet” instead of a name. The fact is, we can’t really be sure who wrote the book of Lamentations. Most commonly it is attributed to the prophet Jeremiah, in fact your Bible may actually say “The Lamentations of Jeremiah” as mine does. That is also why it is found immediately following his prophetic book, as this was the view of the Hebrews at the time of the writing of the Septuagint some 400 years or so later. This Tradition was picked up by Christians as well and remained the common view until the 18th century. Thematically it certainly fits where it has been placed between Jeremiah’s description of the events of 587 BC in the latter chapters of his book and the book of Ezekiel. In this place it acts as a Memorial to those events. Similar to the way we erect war memorials today to commemorate those events or the tomb of the unknown soldier to make sure we never forget those lost in our battles, Lamentations freezes this moment in time and intimately describes, not just what happened, but the people and their tears. Psalm 56:8 says “You have taken account of my wanderings; Put my tears in Your bottle. Are they not in Your book?” and while the events of 587 BC happened as an act of God’s judgment upon his people for many years of sin and idolatry, He still loves them and understands their grief. So Lamentations acts as this bottle, a bottle filled with the tears and memories of what happened. This makes it more than just the silent witness of a stone statue or names written on a wall, it’s a living memorial that gives voice to the people, maintained by the hand of God Himself for His people, passed down through the ages. Their sorrow will never be forgotten. In fact after the restoration and the new temple is built, Israel never again returns to their formerly Idolatrous ways. So, it fits perfectly right here in Scripture after the book of Jeremiah. Additionally, the book shares many form and structural similarities to Jeremiah’s book and clearly the subject matter is within his wheelhouse. 2 Chronicles 35:25 even says “Then Jeremiah chanted a lament for Josiah. And all the male and female singers speak about Josiah in their lamentations to this day. And they made them an ordinance in Israel; behold, they are also written in the Lamentations.” However, the event this text is talking about is the death of King 4 Josiah, which happened many years before the events written about in the Book of Lamentations.