1Remember, Yahweh, what has come on us.
Look, and see our reproach.
2Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers,
our houses to aliens.
3We are orphans and fatherless.
Our mothers are as widows.
4We must pay for water to drink.
Our wood is sold to us.
5Our pursuers are on our necks.
We are weary, and have no rest.
6We have given our hands to the Egyptians,
and to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.
7Our fathers sinned, and are no more.
We have borne their iniquities.
8Servants rule over us.
There is no one to deliver us out of their hand.
9We get our bread at the peril of our lives,
because of the sword in the wilderness.
10Our skin is black like an oven,
because of the burning heat of famine.
11They ravished the women in Zion,
the virgins in the cities of Judah.
12Princes were hanged up by their hands.
The faces of elders were not honored.
13The young men carry millstones.
The children stumbled under loads of wood.
14The elders have ceased from the gate,
and the young men from their music.
15The joy of our heart has ceased.
Our dance is turned into mourning.
16The crown has fallen from our head.
Woe to us, for we have sinned!
17For this our heart is faint.
For these things our eyes are dim:
18for the mountain of Zion, which is desolate.
The foxes walk on it.
19You, Yahweh, remain forever.
Your throne is from generation to generation.
20Why do you forget us forever,
and forsake us for so long a time?
21Turn us to yourself, Yahweh, and we will be turned.
Renew our days as of old.
22But you have utterly rejected us.
You are very angry against us.
The last chapter of Lamentations leaves us without the resolve that we are looking for. The people acknowledge their sin and call out to God. They asked God to remember them and to rescue them. ‘Joy has left our hearts’ they cry and plead for God to restore them.
Wouldn’t it be lovely if lamentations ended with rescue and reconciliation, but it doesn’t? instead the book ends with a difficult question, ‘have you utterly rejected us, are you still angry with us?’ Not the happy ending we were hoping for is it? But, is that not true in life, often we are held in that tension of knowing that God is faithful but still feeling the hurt of living in a broken world. If lamentations help us understand anything it would be that God has been faithful in the past in keeping his promises so we can trust him in the now and in the still to come. The last chapter ends in discord in many ways but if we look back to chapter four it ends with hope. V 22 ‘Oh beautiful Jerusalem your punishment will end; you will soon return from exile.’ Again we see the theme that in looking back at the actions and words of God we gain our future hope.
Today it might feel like you’re in the discord and devastation of exile and tragedy. When you look around it seems that there is no chance of things ending well of finding any resolution. You too cry out ‘have you forgotten me God?’ In this moment let’s gaze back on the faithfulness of God. As we reflect on his glory may we find hope for the here and now and the still to come and may we experience restored joy, and rest in the knowledge that God still keeps his promises.