Hope in Hopelessness (Lamentations 3:21–33)
Lamentations 3:21-33
INTRODUCTION
I believe in the wind even when I can’t feel it.
I believe in the air even though I can’t see it.
I believe in God even when he is silent.
These words were discovered in 1944, scrawled on the walls of a French basement by Jews who hid there to flee from murderous Nazi persecution. When we consider in retrospect the horrors that unfolded in Germany and Poland during that time, we can certainly understand that God seemed silent. I have stood in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, seen the roomfuls of shoes and human hair, stood in its guard towers and walked down the tracks where box cars would ship of 1.1 million Jews ultimately to their deaths in that single location. The capacity of the human heart for evil is nearly limitless.
What shall we do when God is silent? What shall we say to the evils we endure? Where shall we turn when we are trapped, backed into a corner? What shall we do when fear and terror beset us and will not leave? What shall we do in loss and grief and miscarriage and poverty and childlessness and unwanted singleness and chronic illness and life altering accidents and disease? In all, what shall we say in suffering? Where do we find hope when we are hopless? In anyone has something to teach us about that, it’s Jeremiah.
The prophet Jeremiah wrote Lamentations to weep over Jerusalem’s fall. Tradition tells us that during the siege he ascended the Mount of Olives which overlooks the city of Jerusalem and watched the Babylonians sack Jerusalem. Ringing in his head was no doubt the curses of Deuteronomy. Per that constitution of the nation, if Israel obeyed, they would be blessed, and if they disobeyed, they would be horribly cursed. And through the centuries Israel did not obey. So, God faithfully fulfilled his promised in the form of the Babylonians in 586 BC.
Jeremiah watched the display of Gods wrath play out before his very eyes in horrifying, bone-chilling, gut-wrenching color. And I want you to feel the weight of this, because we need to appreciate something of Jeremiah’s experience to fully feel the weight of our text. He looks out across the Kidron Valley and sees the temple a-blaze and the city burning. The walls are broken down. He watches as men are captured and speared alive through the middle on massive spikes and hung in public places as a deterrent to resistance. Women are chased and ravished. Children are ripped from their mothers arms (sometimes from their wombs), grabbed by the heel, and swung against walls and rocks. Gold and precious, holy vessels are taken from the temple are carried out on pallets into the treasury of a foreign king. The few survivors are shackled and marched off into slavery. He smells fire and smoke mixed with blood and sweat of battle and the sewage in the city from the siege. He hears the cruel laughing of soldiers, the hoarse barking of orders by Babylonian captains, the clanging of iron and bronze, the shouts of hunted men, the screaming of women, the crying of children, the crash of rubble, the grinding of the machines of war. No wonder he says, “My eyes are spent with weeping; my stomach churns; my bile is poured out to the ground because of the destruction of the daughter of my people” (2:11). In fact, the very title of the book, taken from the first word of the book, is “How,” which in Hebrew sounds like “Ackh!” A heaving sigh of grief, despair, heaviness, confusion, and sorrow.
It would be nearly impossible to overstate the kind of blow that an event like this would have on Jeremiah’s psyche. This was where their kings dwelt. It was Zion. It was the city of God, a chosen city set on a hill which was to shine as a lighthouse of hope to a lost world. And most importantly, it was where God’s presence dwelt in the temple. We need to understand that the agony of losing Jerusalem extended much farther than merely national disaster—it had deep and pervasive theological and redemptive implications. To lose Jerusalem was to lose everything. There is no king, no seed of David on the throne, and thus no chosen nation and royal priesthood. There was no temple, no sacrificial system, and thus no way commune with God. Thus, there was no hope for the world, for from Zion blessing was to proceed to all the nations. In short, Jeremiah was beholding nothing less than the apparent undoing of all God’s promises. In short, Jeremiah had no hope.
This is the context within which the words we love so much are nestled: Great is your faithfulness. What enables him make such an audacious claim in such a gloomy state of affairs? How does he maintain bold faith in the face of despair? How does he find hope in hopelessness? How does he uphold his faith when all around his soul gives way, when the earth gives way, when the mountains are moved into the heart of the sea, when its waters roar and foam, and the mountains tremble at its swelling? He says, in verse 21: “This I call to mind, and therefore I have hope.” Jeremiah finds hope in hopeless surroundings by appealing to the truth of who God is.
Our sufferings pale in comparison to Jeremiah’s. Yet, his remedy provides us the same hope it provided him. The face of our circumstances may be different, but the hope is the same. And that is because our God is the same. Whatever we might face, our God is the same. And the heart of the argument of our text is this: “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind—God will never break a promise, no matter what appears to be, because his faithfulness is great. Thus, in the midst of his despair Jeremiah advises us to remember four facts about God to maintain our hope: The Lord’s Steadfast Love, the Lord’s Goodness, the Lord’s Discipline, and the Lord’s Compassion.
I. THE LORD’S STEADFAST LOVE (vv22-24)
READ. The first fact to which Jeremiah points in order to lift up his soul is that of God’s never-ending, ever-enduring steadfast love. He says that God’s steadfast love never ceases, that his mercies never come to an end. Both are new every morning. His faithfulness is great, and therefore, the conclusion is: he is our portion and we can have hope. And the overall effect is this, No matter how it may appear, God remains steadfastly committed to fulfilling all of his promises.
What is the Lord’s steadfast love? The term is deep, but it could be summarized as commitment expressed in promises and sealed with a covenant. It is the kind of love you see expressed in wedding vows. The couple expresses commitment to each other by making promises to each other and sealing it in the sight of God with a covenant. The Lord has done so with Israel. Ezekiel 16:8f: “When I passed by you again and saw you, behold, you were at the age for love, and I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness; I made my vow to you and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Lord GOD, and you became mine.” He goes on to describe God’s lavish love for Israel.
In fact, his love is so lavish for Israel that Jeremiah uses the plural, “steadfast loves” or “lovingkindnesses.” As the continual and central confession of Israel went, “Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, and his steadfast love endures forever.” Indeed, Jeremiah says that his steadfast loves never cease. As the hymn says, Could we with ink the ocean fill / And were the skies of parchment made; / Were every stalk on earth a quill, / And every man a scribe by trade; / To write the love of God above / Would drain the ocean dry; / Nor could the scroll contain the whole, / Though stretched from sky to sky.
What an incredible statement when you consider the context! He beholds with his eyes what appears to be the end of God’s steadfast love, the end of his covenant promises, the casting off of his chosen and precious people whom he calls his bride. Yet he returns to the character of God and remembers, “the Lord the Lord, A God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.” It is as if he says, “God remains committed to his promises. As he has promised, so shall he do. He will not forsake us. His covenant love is never completed. God remains committed to his people.”
In fact, he remains so committed to his people that he says, “His mercies never come to an end, they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” Every morning, we find that the Lord’s mercies are fresh and new. They are young mercies. They are never given as though they were stale bread or stagnant water. He gives us fresh bread every morning from heaven, like the manna. In other words, how do we know that God’s steadfast love continues in our trials? He reminds us every day through green and tender mercies wet with dew, sparkling and newly minted reminders of his never ending steadfast love. The sun rose over Jerusalem the day after its fall. The rain still falls on the earth. God is still faithful to his promises.
We have been given all that is needful for us. In times of great trial and distress it is tempting for us to focus on what we have lost, what has been taken away, rather than what we are given every morning. We so easily fixate on what we want that we forget what we have been promised. And as such, we forfeit the joy of hope, however riddled with tears it may be. Thus, we would do well to take time every day and follow the advice that is so often repeated in our day: count your blessings.
All of this is to say, “Great is your faithfulness.” As God has promised, so he shall do. Yet do not read and recite those words only with pleasant and easy things in mind. When God judged Jerusalem, he was manifesting his great faithfulness. He was keeping promises he made—promises of destruction and judgement. Yes, he is faithful to all his promises, even the ones to judge. And yet the thrust goes beyond that: If he is faithful to judge, how much more faithful will he be to save. That is after all his heart. He does not desire the death of the wicked.
Now, don’t be confused. Not all our suffering is direct consequence of a specific sin we have committed. Nonetheless, all suffering is a result of God’s judgment on sin and in that way, all suffering demonstrates God’s faithfulness. But again, if God is faithful to judge, will he not also be faithful to save? Thus, our sufferings are transformed into great encouragements. They give us hope that, though it is like this now, it shall not be this way forever.
Because of this, Jeremiah can confidently cry out, “The Lord is my portion!” The Lord is his portion. Interestingly, the word for portion refers to an allotment of land for each Israelite family. The land they got was their “portion.” Thus, it was their special, unique, individual possession, something that was uniquely and only theirs. The cry of Jeremiah’s soul was that the Lord is his portion. And think about the significance of those words in this context! He was watching before his very eyes his portion, his land, being taken away from him by the Babylonians, ripped from his hands. It was given as an “everlasting possession.” So this would have prompted Jeremiah to ask, “Are you really fulfilling those promises?” And he says here, “The Lord is my portion! Not land, not earth, not possessions. The Lord.” And therefore he can have hope. Let all be ripped from his hands, he will hope in the Lord.
Have you ever felt like that? Have you been brought to the end of your rope and realized that you had nothing left but God? It is a sweet and bitter place to be. It is bitter because the earthly things we love most are often ripped away from us. It is sweet because only at that point do we know Christ in the “fellowship of his sufferings.” Are you at that place now? Then I encourage you to look to God. Let him be your portion, not your job, your health, your family, you house, your livelihood, and even your very life. Look to God, and his great faithfulness. Nobody will ever be able to take you away from him or take him away from you. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, ‘For your sake xwe are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” He is therefore our portion, and we can have hope. Call this to mind!
II. THE LORD’S GOODNESS (vv25-27)
READ. The second reality that Jeremiah would have us call to mind that we may have hope is the Lord’s goodness. Look at the repetition of the word “good” in the next stanza. V25: “The LORD is good to those who wait for him…” v26 “It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.” v27 “It is good for a man that he bear the yoke sin his youth.”
Good things are always an expression of God’s goodness. From the smallest bite of ice cream to the highest and most noble pleasures of the soul and intellect, all goodness comes from God. Good things are like a beam of light in an otherwise dark room, indicating that the sun really is shining outside. God’s goodness is his disposition to be kind to his creation, his propensity towards generosity, his quickness to give. And his gifts are always good.
But let us again not forget the context. For even though his gifts are always good, they are not always pleasant. As Spurgeon put it, “Yoke-bearing is not pleasant, but it is good.” There are a lot of pleasant things which are not good for you (holiday sweets)! And there are a lot of unpleasant things that are good for you (vegetables and exercise)! And this is Jeremiah’s point here. Sometimes God’s good gifts are given in ugly wrapping paper.
There are unique graces and mercies which are only received through suffering. Suffering weans us from inordinate love of the pleasures of the world to which our hearts so quickly attach. Suffering vividly paints for us a picture of the horrific spiritual evil that sin is. Suffering seals the assurance of our salvation to our hearts. Suffering causes heaven to shine more brightly in our eyes. Suffering teaches us to lean upon God’s strength alone.
But Jeremiah points us to the one which is primarily among all these: suffering forces us to trust in God, to wait for him to act when we cannot. This is his meaning here. When we suffer, we wait for him—that is, we hope in him and expectantly anticipate his promises. When we suffer, we seek him. We aspire after him, we desire him more earnestly and more eagerly. We desire his salvation in its fullest sense, but as of yet we don’t see it. So we are forced to wait. And this is good for us.
Do we believe that? How many of us view our sufferings like that? As a dear sister in Christ often used to say to me, “If we really understood how good suffering is for us, we would be far slower to try and get out of it!” How true! How counter-intuitive. Indeed, how utterly beyond the realm and thought of possibility for us to do this at all! But it is not our work, but God’s in us! Of course we don’t nurture some sort of sick masochism. We don’t relish in suffering. And yet, we must not turn away from it, run from it, or hide from it when it comes. Rather, we must embrace it for the good it does for us.
That is why he says it is good that one should wait quietly. Israel had always had to wait quietly for the Lord. Moses’ immortal words to the Israelites as they were trapped between a hostile army and an impassable body of water were these: “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.” Nothing’s changed. God often puts his people in situations which strip them of all recourse, circumstances which let them know all too painfully that we can’t do anything. And that is good for us, for it brings us off of our self-sufficiency. We are far too prone to trust in ourselves, and suffering teaches us that the only thing to do is trust in God.
This is why Jeremiah shockingly says, “It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.” The most difficult sufferings we witness are those which the youngest of us endure. A man in his 80s dies from heart problems, and it is sad but expected. But if that same man died in his 20s from the same problem it is a tragedy. But young suffering is good for us because when we suffer at that age, we learn to trust in God early on, and we are spared from fighting against the bad habits that encrust our lives over time. We are at a disadvantage if we never learn how to shoulder suffering until we are old! Further, there is a difference between suffering happening to us and bearing suffering. Bear the yoke. Do not throw the yoke off. Do not chafe under its burden. Bear it. It is only in the school of suffering that we learn the lessons of his love. This leads us to…
III. THE LORD’S DISCIPLINE (vv28-30)
READ. The third reality to consider which gives us hope is the Lord’s discipline. When we bear this yoke, what are we to do? How are we to actually bear it? In fact, I would even ask, what can we do? Was there anything that Jeremiah could have done to make the siege and destruction of Jerusalem stop? It was a long time in coming, prophesied by his own lips, and utterly irrevocable by the Lord. So what could he do?
The answer is: nothing. You. Can’t. Do. Anything. He was backed into a corner. He was surrounded by a powerful invading army. What could he do? The only option that he had left was to “sit alone,” to “wait,” to “hope,” and to “bear the yoke.” And when we bear this yoke, this is the advice that Jeremiah gives us: take it. “Sit alone in silence…put your mouth in the dust…give your cheek to the one who strikes…be filled with insults.
Thanks, Jeremiah! That’s encouraging! I have hope now! But before we guffaw, let us listen more closely. The sufferer of these verses finds himself beset by suffering: it is “laid on him,” he is “struck” on the cheek,” he is “insulted.” What is the implication other than this is God’s work. That was certainly true for Jeremiah. And thus Jeremiah’s counsel is simply do not resist the Lord’s work. Understand that it is here from the hand of the Lord. Therefore, submit to his sovereign hand and humble yourself in the dust.
Therefore, if you find yourself in a position where there is no way out, where there is no possibility of turning back, where trials have beset you, let me give you advice that was once given to me when I was in that position: “Take it. Sit there and take it. Don’t complain. Don’t grumble. Don’t answer back to the Lord. Just quietly endure the suffering and say, ‘Though he slay me, yet will I trust him.’”
This liberates us from grumbling in your suffering, because it will help us to realize that God has a perfect plan that he is working out which includes far more than merely our comfort. Much like Jesus did in the garden: “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will” (Matt 26:39). The yoke was laid heaviest upon Jesus, and he bore it in silence. Isaiah 53:7: “like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.” He didn’t complain, but he “continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly” (1 Pet 2:23). Our Lord recognized that God had a plan which extended beyond just himself. He knew that he had to endure the cross, because that was God’s good and perfect will. He knew that God’s plan couldn’t be accomplished unless he silently and obediently submitted to God’s plan for his life, even when that included suffering.
Take it. Let it have its purifying effect. Sit alone in silence. Put your mouth, your face in the dust—a gesture of mourning and submission. Give your cheek to the one who strikes. Be filled with insults. Take it.
In other words, as one author reminds us, “Solving the problem isn’t the point!” There are bigger things at play in your suffering than just you. God is always silently at work behind the scenes accomplishing things which extend far beyond our individual lives. There are more important goals and ends than merely our comfort, or our lives going the way we want. When we find ourselves immersed in a trial, we are so quickly tempted to ask, “How can I get out of this?” when we should start asking, “Lord, what do you have for me in this?”
The author of Hebrews said it best: “It is for discipline that you have to endure” (Heb 12:7). “For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Heb 12:11). There is “holiness without which no one will see the Lord” (Heb 12:14). We need holiness to see the Lord. But we can’t have holiness without discipline! The Lord’s disciplining hand is calculated to cultivate holiness in us, and thereby to guarantee our salvation!
Brothers and sisters, if we do not bear the yoke when it is laid upon us, then we will miss the good that is intended for us. If we try to throw it off as soon as we can rather than to wait for God’s good timing, we will find ourselves missing out on far greater benefits than our own comfort. Therefore, I would encourage you through this time of suffering and trial, and all the future ones to come, to silently and patiently and submissively bear the affliction. Allow it to have its purifying effect. This we must call to mind, and therefore, we will have hope. Yet how can we do so? How can we suffer with this kind of mentality? How is this even possible? This leads us to…
IV. THE LORD’S COMPASSION (vv31-33)
The final reality to call to mind is the Lord’s compassion. Oh, how packed with comfort these words are, especially when you consider the context they were spoken into: “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.” What can we learn from this text.
First, let us learn that for us no trial sent by the hand of God lasts forever. He says that the Lord will not cast off forever. To Jeremiah, in the moment, it seemed as though the Lord had permanently cast off. Jerusalem had been overthrown! The people were being slaughtered or carried off into exile! The walls were broken down! The temple was toppled! How could anyone possibly restore this? Surely, it must have been easy to conclude that the Lord had cast off his people forever.
Jeremiah knew that this was not true, however. In his prophecy, he said this in Jeremiah 33:20: “Thus says the LORD: If you can break my covenant with the day and my covenant with the night, so that day and night will not come at their appointed time, then also my covenant with David my servant may be broken, so that he shall not have a son to reign on his throne…” The universe must unravel, the laws of physics be reversed, and sun and moon upended before God breaks his promises. No, the Lord will not cast off forever, and if he did, he is not God.
No, the Lord will not cast off forever. He has always been faithful to his people and he has never abandoned them. He said to Isaac, “I will be with you and will bless you” (Gen 26:3). He said to Jacob, “I will be with you” (Gen 31:3). Jacob promised his sons, “God will be with you” (Gen 48:21). God said to Moses, “I will be with you” (Ex 3:12). He said to Joshua through Moses, “Be strong and courageous…I will be with you” (Deut 31:23). He said to Gideon, “I will be with you” (Judg 6:16). So throughout the ages, even down to today where Jesus promises us, “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt 28:20). He does not cast off his people forever.
Second, let us learn that the Lord will always have compassion on us. “Even though he causes grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love.” We do have this promise from the Lord’s own mouth: he always attends grief with compassion. Never have we been grieved without also receiving grace. In fact, this promise is so sure that I would go so far as to say that being grieved is the surest sign that you are and shall certainly receive compassion. He has compassion on us in the midst of our suffering. Every trial has grace lodged within it, so that receiving the trial is also to receive the grace.
He also has compassion on us by ending the trial. For the believer, every trial always ends. Always! For the believer, there is no such thing as an eternal trial. All trials end for the believer. All of them. Even death ends in the resurrection. Sometimes, the Lord is compassionate to us to remove the trial from us here in this world. In fact, often he does. It is his custom to “mingle toil with peace and rest.” We go through difficult times, and we go through reprieves. We endure the difficult times with thankfulness. We rejoice in the reprieves and glut ourselves on them when we are given them. And even if he doesn’t do this, we are still promised that we will be liberated from this body of death and pass through the doors of death. Trials cannot follow us through that door. Only glory and happiness and peace await us through that door. And if we look longer than death, we see the resurrection where all that was lost will be restored with interest.
Last, let us learn that the Lord never desires our pain and suffering, but sends it, as it were against his own heart. “for he does not afflict from his heart or grieve the children of men.” Ezekiel 33:11: “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live…” Even though the Lord does will that we endure these trials here, he does not do so from his heart. He does not delight and relish in the pain of his people. He only afflicts against his own desires, his own compassions. He still does afflict us because it is for our good, and therefore it is an act of his love. But he never afflicts from his heart. And when he does, he does so reticently, and with great slowness, and with no delight.
I often think of how I feel when I must discipline my children. I do not delight in it, but I must do it for their good. They may not understand that. But that doesn’t change my obligation towards them because I am committed to their good. God is the same way. He feels like the loving parent who disciplines their child for their good. He doesn’t delight in their pain. Rather, he is after the good which can only come from the pain.
We must never forget God’s heart. It’s easy to impute motives to God. “God, why do you hate me?” Have you ever said that? I’ve said that. Can you not believe that the Lord intends more than just your pain? He is always compassionate and kind, even when his kindness is severe. He is always loving and gracious, even when his love takes on a harder form than we may want. He never casts off forever. Even though he causes grief, he will always have compassion also.
CONCLUSION
So, how shall we find hope in hopelessness? We shall recall what is true about him. How shall we find hope in the midst of horrific suffering and evil? We find hope in suffering by remembering God’s character. What shall we say to these things? How do we know that tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger or sword shall never separate us from the love of God in Christ? Because God is who he is. Resolve now in your hearts that no support will be enough for you in the day of trial and tribulation except God’s character.
God is full of never-ending steadfast love. He is good to all his creation in diverse and unexpected ways. He is caring and loving in his discipline of his children, and they must patiently bear it. He is compassionate through it all, for he knows our weakness and our frame, understanding that we are made from dust. And therefore, we may have hope amidst even the most horrifying suffering.
So, take heart! Call these things to mind and have hope. Dwell on them and let the word of God seep down into your souls. Let it water the roots of your life and allow you to bear much fruit during this time of affliction. And while we are traversing through this barren wilderness of trial and affliction, let us time and time again return to the oasis of God’s word. He will sustain you, indeed “He will never let the righteous be moved” (Ps 55:22).