It is one of those
quirks of history.
One that continues to
have the power to disturb.
It was on the 9th
of Av in 587BC that what had begun three weeks before was completed. The temple and the city of Jerusalem were finally destroyed by the
Babylonians.
Talmudic tradition has
it that in AD 70 on that very day, the 9th of Av the Romans
destroyed the temple and the city of Jerusalem
once again.
The 9th Av
is this year 29th July. For
the three weeks from 8th July Jewish people will observe a period of
fasting – Tisha B’Av and the three weeks – destruction and renewal.
On the eve of the 9th
Av people will gather in their synagogue.
In the
synagogue, the curtain is removed from the Ark
The Prophet who more
than any other was caught up in the destruction of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple
in 587 BC was Jeremiah. He determined to
remain in the city when all seemed lost, he had, after all, purchased property
in the city as a statement of hope against hope.
But in 2 Chronicles
35:25 we read what Jeremiah did.
Jeremiah also uttered a lament for Josiah, and
all the singing-men and singing-women have spoken of Josiah in their laments to
this day. They made these a custom in Israel
It was perhaps with
good reason that those Greek translators of the Hebrew Scriptures placed
Lamentations immediately after Jeremiah.
But in the Jewish
Scriptures Lamentations is the fourth book of the Megilloth, the five little
scrolls each of which is associated with a festival in the Jewish liturgical
calendar.
Lamentations is the
bleakest of books.
It is a collection of
five poems that are beautifully crafted.
Chapter 1 has 22
verses.
Chapter 2 has 22
verses
Chapter 3 has 22 x 3 =
66 verses
Chapter 4 has 22
verses
Chapter 5 has 22
verses
What is the
significance of the number 22?
There are 22 letters
in the Hebrew Alphabet.
In chapters 1, 2 and 4
each verse begins with the succeeding letter of the Hebrew alphabet.. In chapter 3 the first three verses begin
with the first letter of the alphabet, the second 3 with the second letter and
so on.
The final chapter has
22 verses, but no longer an acrostic
pattern.
Hebrew poetry as is
the poetry in any language, wonderfully skillfully crafted.
Is it that the
destruction, the lament, is unremitting – from start to finish, from beginning
to end, from A to Z – there is a totality to it.
It begins in utter
dejection …
The Deserted City
1How lonely sits the
city
that once was full of people!
How like a widow she has become,
she that was great among the nations!
She that was a princess among the provinces
has become a vassal.
that once was full of people!
How like a widow she has become,
she that was great among the nations!
She that was a princess among the provinces
has become a vassal.
2 She weeps bitterly in the night,
with tears on her cheeks;
among all her lovers
she has no one to comfort her;
all her friends have dealt treacherously with her,
they have become her enemies.
At its end there is a
glimmer of hope … but it is as if the light is extinguished as the book
finishes with a question that haunts …
19 But you, O Lord, reign for
ever;
your throne endures to all generations.
20 Why have you forgotten us completely?
Why have you forsaken us these many days?
21 Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored;
renew our days as of old—
22 unless you have utterly rejected us,
and are angry with us beyond measure.
your throne endures to all generations.
20 Why have you forgotten us completely?
Why have you forsaken us these many days?
21 Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored;
renew our days as of old—
22 unless you have utterly rejected us,
and are angry with us beyond measure.
Why should the last
chapter not have the sequence? An
oversight, no time? Or maybe a sense of
even greater fragmentation. Things
falling apart that cannot be put together again.
This is a book that
works for the Jewish people lamenting the loss of the temple and the
destruction of Jerusalem .
It is a collection of
poems that works in any place where a city is destroyed and its peoples laid
waste.
News that comes from Homs is so disturbing …
and so many cities like it. What is
doubly disturbing in Syria
is that it is a country hundreds of thousands of Christians have fled to as
refugees from the destruction of their cities and their homes in Iraq and
elsewhere in the middle east.
There is an
unremitting bleakness to these words.
Tears, lament at the
fate of a city is something that Jesus shared.
As he approached
Jerusalem Jesus too wept bitter tears.
The tears he wept echoed the tears of Jeremiah at the destruction of Jerusalem long ago … but they anticipated a destruction that was
to come.
41 As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it, 42saying, ‘If you, even you, had only recognized on this day
the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. 43Indeed, the days will come upon you, when your enemies will
set up ramparts around you and surround you, and hem you in on every side. 44They will crush you to the ground, you and your children
within you, and they will not leave within you one stone upon another; because
you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.’
Coming back to
Lamentations, the very construction of the poetry invites us to ask another
question.
Why should the middle
chapter, the third chapter have 66 verses.
For sixty years from
1935 to 1995 Kenneth Bailey’s home was in the Middle East . Growing up in Egypt
and spending 40 years teaching New Testament in seminaries and institutes in Egypt , Lebanon ,
Jerusalem and Cyprus . His book Jesus through Middle Eastern Eyes
draws on ancient, medieval and modern books written in Aramaic, Hebrew, Syriac
and Arabic.
One thing he observes.
Middle Eastern writing
follows different customs from western literature. In western writing an argument is developed
in stages – from a beginning through a development to a conclusion.
If you want to know
the message – look to the conclusion.
Do that in Lamentations
and it is pretty bleak.
But Middle Easter
writing is fond of a different kind of structure. And the key to that structure lies in the
very layout of the Book of Lamentations.
There is a sequence A
– B – C – B – A.
The argument reaches
its climax not at the end but in the middle.
See how that works in
Lamentations and something remarkable happens.
Our attention is drawn
to the middle chapter simply because it is three times the length.
It begins intensely
personally.
This is the feeling of
devastation of someone at their lowest.
It not only resonates
for those caught up in the destruction of Jerusalem ,
this is a chapter that resonates for anyone who senses their world has fallen
apart.
In a powerful book on
depression this was a chapter that for some described the abject awfulness of
depressive illness.
3I am one who has
seen affliction
under the rod of God’s wrath;
2 he has driven and brought me
into darkness without any light;
3 against me alone he turns his hand,
again and again, all day long.
under the rod of God’s wrath;
2 he has driven and brought me
into darkness without any light;
3 against me alone he turns his hand,
again and again, all day long.
4 He has made my flesh and my skin waste away,
and broken my bones;
5 he has besieged and enveloped me
with bitterness and tribulation;
6 he has made me sit in darkness
like the dead of long ago.
7 He has walled me about so that I cannot escape;
he has put heavy chains on me;
8 though I call and cry for help,
he shuts out my prayer;
9 he has blocked my ways with hewn stones,
he has made my paths crooked.
This is the cry of the
person whose prayers are not heeded.
It is devastating.
And then something
remarkable happens.
In the whole bible,
this has to be the bleakest book.
In the middle of this
the bleakest book it is as if a light is shone into the darkness, a light that
has the capacity to pierce the gloom.
19 The thought of my affliction and my homelessness
is wormwood and gall!
20 My soul continually thinks of it
and is bowed down within me.
21 But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:
is wormwood and gall!
20 My soul continually thinks of it
and is bowed down within me.
21 But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:
22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,
his mercies never come to an end;
23 they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
24 ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul,
‘therefore I will hope in him.’
In the most unexpected
of places we get to the heart of the Good News of our Faith.
It is when things are
at their worst that light shines into the darkness.
Notice what happens
here.
This I call to
mind. It is a deliberate focusing. A turning of the mind. It is something that gives hope.
It is the steadfast
love of the Lord that never ceases.
All may seem to have
collapsed but God’s love prevails.
This enters our psyche
through a hymn I remember singing so often at school,
New Every morning is
the love our wakening and uprising prove.
New mercies each
returning day surround your people as they pray.
It is in the writing
of Thomas Chisholm, plagued through his life by ill health that resulted in the
ending of his ministry after only a year, that these words come so powerfully
to life.
Great is your
faithfulness
Great is your
faithfulness
Morning by morning new
mercies I see
All I have needed your
hand has provided
Great is your
faithfulness Father to me.
It is a powerful
passage to share. I well remember
sharing it with someone in moments of deep depression. Much, much later, they recalled the comments
we had shared. It wasn’t these verses
that stuck in their memory. But the ones
that followed.
After speaking of the
need to wait, and to wait some more, the writer has a much more oblique word to
share …
It is a promise to
hold on to when things are not readily coming back together again.
31 For the Lord will not
reject for ever.
32 Although he causes grief, he will have compassion
according to the abundance of his steadfast love;
33 for he does not willingly afflict
or grieve anyone.
reject for ever.
32 Although he causes grief, he will have compassion
according to the abundance of his steadfast love;
33 for he does not willingly afflict
or grieve anyone.
There is something
special about Lamentations. And in its
very structure.
Steeped as we are in
western ways of thinking, we can give the impression that the journey of faith
is linear. From despair to hope. And if we can follow through the logical
sequence from the start through its development to its conclusion all will be
well.
There is something in
Lamentations to hold on to. It is more
true to life, to the experience I have shared, and to experiences others have
shared with me.
We glimpse the grounds
for hope – but then we have to return to the awfulness of the world.
Lamentations is true
to that pattern. For after the hope in
the middle of the book, the lament returns, as devastating as ever.
In a life where we
might on occasions reach the mountain top we have to return to the valley – but
let’s bring to mind what we have glimpsed.
And hold on to that promise.
The ninth of Av in
that Jewish calendar I looked up on the Internet is described as a day of
mourning, a day of hope.
In the midst of all
that gives rise to the despair of lament let us find hope in just the way the
writer of these words did
21 But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:
and therefore I have hope:
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