Lamentations 3:22–33

²²The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;his mercies never come to an end; ²³they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ²⁴"The LORD is my portion," says my soul, "therefore I will hope in him." ²⁵The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. ²⁶It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD. ²⁷It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. ²⁸Let him sit alone in silence when it is laid on him; ²⁹let him put his mouth in the dust— there may yet be hope; ³⁰let him give his cheek to the one who strikes, and let him be filled with insults. ³¹For the Lord will not cast off forever, ³²but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love; ³³for he does not afflict from his heart or grieve the children of men.

At the beginning of chapter 3 of Lamentations, Jeremiah writes: "I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of God's wrath; God has driven and brought me into darkness without any light; surely against me God turns his hand again and again the whole day long." This is not how we like to think about God: afflicting us in wrath, driving us into darkness, turning his hand against us. Reading and studying the Lamentations may seem silly or even wrong in an era when popular preachers emphasize joy and prosperity, and psychologists emphasize guilt-free living. The American popular god is a god of love, tolerance, and political-correctness who just wants everyone to be happy and get along with each other.

Perhaps that is the very reason why today we should consider Jeremiah's words here in the Book of Lamentations, words which honestly decry the crushing weight of human sin and guilt. It is the true antidote to the American cultural god. There is no room here for a therapeutic god without wrath, a god of positive thinking and glory theology.

In Lamentations we see a God who punishes the conscience not only with temporal sufferings, but with death, hell, and sin, and at the same time refuses grace and mercy, as though he wanted to condemn and show his anger eternally." (Luther). This is Jeremiah's God, the God of Lamentations, the God of the Bible, though perhaps not the god we learned about in Sunday School when we were children.

Let's start at the beginning: when Jeremiah was called by God. He said, "The Word of the Lord came to me." Who is the Word of the Lord? Jesus Christ is the Word of God. It is Jesus Christ who came to Jeremiah by the mediation of the Holy Spirit. So in one sense, the words of our text today are the words of Jesus himself, as we shall see a little later on.

Jesus said to him, "Before I formed you in the womb. I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you." Now, you would think that Jeremiah would have been ecstatic with joy. To be chosen by God. To be one of God's elect. If you listen to the preachers of today, you would think that would mean nothing but a blessed and problem free life, overflowing with God's goodness and riches and success and wealth and prosperity for the rest of his days. Our natural response is that being chosen by God is a very good deal for the person so chosen. Who would not jump at the opportunity.

Not Jeremiah! He objected. He started inventing excuses. "I do not know how to speak. I am but a youth. Go away and leave me alone. Choose someone else." That was his reaction. He knew what was lying ahead if he took the job. Jesus once said that a disciple must first count the cost. All the Hebrews knew that to be God's elect was no free ride on the glory train. There is a tremendously high cost to be paid by those whom God favors. Election does not mean living a life of unending blessings; it means being chosen to give up one's all for God, even what one holds most dear, as Abraham found out. There is a cost to being the chosen people of God. Up to the present day, the Jewish people are all too aware of their calling to martyrdom; a calling to suffering, sorrow, and affliction. Indeed, Jeremiah witnessed the invasion of Jerusalem. He witnessed the slaughter of innocents, the deportation of men, and the burning of the city, the despoiling of the temple of God. He witnessed thousands of men, women and children being carried away in chains like slaves to Babylon, including pious men such as Daniel and the prophet Ezekiel. Jeremiah, one of the few scattered inhabitants that remained behind, was imprisoned, cast into a well to die, and then kidnapped and taken in chains to Egypt by the followers of Zedekiah. There presumably he died.

And that is the background for our Old Testament pericope today from Lamentations. In the beginning of chapter 3 Jeremiah says, "I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of [God's] wrath." Jeremiah is not just speaking for himself, he is putting words into our mouth. For we are the chosen, the elect, the called ones. At your Baptism you were called to be one of God's elect, just like Jeremiah. At Baptism the sign of the cross was made over your head and your heart. You now live under the cross. The baptized life is one of taking up your cross daily, and following Jesus, wherever that leads, through the valleys of pain and suffering as well as over the mountain tops of glory. By means of your Baptism these Lamentations of Jeremiah became yours. "You are the man." Against you he turns his hand all day long. He has made your flesh and skin waste away, he has besieged and enveloped you with bitterness and tribulation, he has walled you about, has made your chains heavy, and though you call and cry for help, he shuts out your prayer. He has filled you with bitterness and made your teeth grind on gravel. All because you are a sinner, and the wages of sin is death. Lamentations 3 is your lament as much as it was Jeremiah's, and if you have not felt this way yet, it is coming sooner or later. As Luther says, "God punishes the conscience not only with temporal sufferings, but with death, hell, and sin....." God's law and God's afflictions are painful. It is the Father pruning the branches of the vine to strip away sin, the desires of the flesh, and all that we hold more dear to us than God himself. (John 15).

But the Lamentations of Jeremiah are not only Jeremiah's and ours, they are also God's lamentations. The words given to Jeremiah to speak were from Jesus himself. It is God who suffers the most pain. It is God who has been hurt most. When Adam and Eve rejected God, the pain was God's. When God saw that man's heart and thoughts were only evil continually, God was "grieved to his heart" (Gen 6:6). It was God who suffered pain when his children were led away in chains to Babylon. It was God who suffered the pain when he begged Abraham to sacrifice his son. It was God who suffered the pain when he sacrificed his own Son on a cross. It is God's speaking in Lamentations 3 verse 1 saying, "I am the man who has seen affliction." Yes, Jesus himself was The Man who "has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath." Jesus is The Man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, who has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. (Isaiah 53).

Jesus is The Man who was afflicted for our transgressions so that by his stripes we are healed! We now come to the Old Testament reading itself: verses 22-33. Here we have the most precious Gospel. It is the only comfort offered in the entire Book of Lamentations. For here Jeremiahs says, "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end, they are new every morning, great is your faithfulness." "for the Lord will not cast off forever, and though he cause grief, he does not afflict from his heart." The "steadfast love" of the Lord: that is the Hebrew word, "Hesed." (Yes, just like the Hesed House here in Aurora.) It means: Steadfast love, loyalty, faithfulness, kindness, grace. It describes the relationship between relatives, friends, father and son, and especially between husband and wife. Throughout the Old Testament, God calls himself the Groom and his people are the bride, so there exists hesed, steadfast love and faithfulness of God toward us. Like the love and faithfulness of a husband for his wife; God is steadfast in his love for his bride, the church.

And so, though he causes grief and afflicts man to bring us to repentance and strip us of false gods, he will not cast us off forever. He will have compassion according to his steadfast love. He does not afflict from his heart. The afflictions of the Law are his foreign work. The work of his heart is steadfast love. As Luther says, "God stands hidden among the sufferings which would separate us from him like a wall. And yet he looks upon me and does not forsake me. He stands there and is ready to help in grace, as Jeremiah says, 'He casts men aside, but that is not the intention of his heart.'"

"The great thing in life is to have a sure confidence in God, when, at least as far as we can see, he shows himself in wrath, and to expect better at his hands than we now know. Here God is hidden. But they who in such suffering trust God and hold on to a good, firm confidence in him, who believe that he is well pleased with them, see in their sufferings and afflictions nothing but pure and precious merits, the costliest treasures which no man can assess."

Here, in the wisdom of our forefathers who developed the liturgical calendar of the church year, this Lamentation of Jeremiah is put together with the Gospel reading for today of two miracles Jesus performed. One, in which he healed a woman who had an issue of blood for 12 years, and the other in which he raised from the dead a 12 year old girl. For here Jesus was not just performing miracles or showing his power, but this is God reversing the afflictions of man. This is the God who does "not cast off forever." This is the God who "though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to his steadfast love." This is God reversing the affliction and grief of his people. Here, by these miracles, Lamentation comes to an end, and joy is taking its place. "In his grace he became poor so that you, by his poverty, might become rich," says our Epistle reading. In the Psalm today we sang: "I cried to you for help, and you have healed me. You have brought up my soul from Sheol; you restored me to life from among those who go down to the pit." By his suffering and death we have been freed from our sin and saved from the wrath and punishment of God. By his resurrection we have been given a new life and a new future. Though he cast us off into the depths of hell for our sin, by his punishment in hell he has led the us away into freedom. By Jesus' death and resurrection, we are well pleasing to God. He has made us the delight of his heart, the jewel in his crown. When he causes grief or affliction, it is by his grace. It does not mean he is angry with us, rather that he loves us and is well pleased with us. He holds us up in high esteem and delight.

Jesus is the steadfast love of the Lord. Jesus is the groom and we are the bride. And his mercies are new every morning. Yes, that's right, every morning. That points us to that great and victorious morning of the first Easter Sunday, when Jesus rose from the dead, when his mercies were made new. The Lord will not cast off forever; he does not afflict from his heart, but he made his mercies new in the morning, that first Easter morning. Amen.