Lamentations bids us to keep this in mind, that we always have hope when we hope in the Lord.
The siege, fall, and destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 587 B.C. and the exile which followed were some of the hardest times for the people of Israel. Aptly called Lamentations, this second volume of Jeremiah (2 Chronicles 35:25) gives the deepest expression of the pain from their broken hearts and plight of Israel’s populace upon the obliteration of their entire world. Israel’s sin and rejection has led to a national death of sorts, as God’s rejection made them feel forgotten in a land of sorrows (Isaiah 40:27; Ezekiel 37:11). In a very truthful way, this connects to the assigned Gospel lesson of the day from Mark 5:21-43. Here you have an anonymous woman who is cut off from the life of the community. She is unclean and unable to have access to the Temple. She has spent her life on a cure that will not come, and she is broken-hearted. In desperation, she turns to Jesus and her weeping turns to praise. The unexpected gift of healing gave her back her life from a living death. Her hope in the mercy of God was found only in Jesus. The same is true of Jairus’ daughter. She was dead, beyond rescue, and gone forever. However, mercy and hope were found in Jesus and their mourning and lamentation turned to praise for the salvation from God that they witnessed in the Messiah.
Our text from Lamentations is remarkably similar to the experience of the women in our appointed Gospel lesson of the day. In the midst of Lamentations’ descriptions of her (Israel’s) awful suffering, we find an unexpected hymn of praise. They still have reason to hope in God and trust in His mercy for the future. God has judged His people for their faithlessness toward Him. They have been put into subjugation by their enemies (verses 27-30). Nevertheless, “The steadfast love of the Lord endures forever, His mercies never come to an end” (22). Beyond His judgement there is always the grace, mercy, and the love of God. God will not give up on the people He has created for Himself or cast them off forever. God never throws us away like trash.
This reminds me of that great section of Bo Giertz’ work, The Hammer of God. It is the scene where poor pietistic Fridfeldt was almost in tears saying: “But sir, if you do not give your heart to Jesus, you cannot be saved.” The older wiser pastor responds: “You are right, my boy. And it is just as true that, if you think you are saved because you give Jesus your heart, you will not be saved. You see, my boy,” he continued reassuringly, as he continued to look at the young pastor’s face, in which uncertainty and resentment were shown in a struggle for the upper hand, “it is one thing to choose Jesus as one’s Lord and Savior, to give Him one’s heart and commit oneself to Him, and that He now accepts one into His little flock; it is a very different thing to believe on Him as a Redeemer of sinners, of whom one is chief. One does not choose a Redeemer for oneself, you understand, nor give one’s heart to Him. The heart is a rusty, old can on a junk heap, a fine birthday gift, indeed! But a wonderful Lord passes by, and has mercy on the wretched tin can, sticks His walking cane through it, and rescues it from the junk pile and takes it home with Him. That is how it is.”[1]
In our text, we see how God, in overwhelming and undeserved mercy, comes graciously to us and delivers us from the death we deserve for our sin and takes us back into His good fellowship. Israel learned about that grace of God when she was delivered from her Babylonian exile and returned to her land. The two women in our Gospel lesson learned it in the grace and mercy which came to them through Jesus Christ. We learn about the grace and mercy of God in the forgiveness and new life granted to us freely on account of Jesus death and resurrection. We too have a song of praise in the midst of our lamentation over sin. God did not keep us cut off from the living community of His presence but, instead, has brought us back into life through Christ our Messiah and Lord. I guess you could say God is in the business of bringing the dead back to life. Lamentations bids us to keep this in mind, that we always have hope when we hope in the Lord. By faith in Christ, we have the hope realized and living, now and eternally. Verse 25 bids us to wait on the Lord, as His return will mean never ending mercy and grace.
We learn about the grace and mercy of God in the forgiveness and new life granted to us freely on account of Jesus death and resurrection.
Perhaps a good structure for this sermon would be the “Four Pages Structure.”
“Paul Scott Wilson has popularized the law/gospel structure through his work, The Four Pages of the Sermon. In this work, Wilson speaks of four rhetorical units in the sermon, two of them based upon the Law and two based upon the Gospel:
- Trouble in the text.
- Trouble in the world.
- Grace in the text.
- Grace in the world.
During the course of the sermon, the preacher will take his hearers through these four experiences. As Wilson notes, the preacher can vary the way in which he orders the references to these four rhetorical units in order to create some variety with this design.
The sermon could offer a comprehensive movement from trouble to grace. Here, the sermon begins by presenting trouble in the text and trouble in the world and then proclaims grace in the text and grace in the world. This structure works well when approaching a sin that is difficult to speak about in the congregation as it allows the text to begin conversation leading to a confession of that sin. Or the sermon begins by presenting trouble in the world and trouble in the text and then proclaims grace in the text and grace in the world. This structure works well when a particular sin is widely known and experienced in a congregation and the preacher desires to help the congregation see how they, in this way, are very similar to people in the biblical text. Preserving the placement of grace in the text at the major turn of the sermon allows the preacher to highlight God’s gracious intervention as recorded in Scripture as the source of our present trust and hope.
The sermon could also offer a recurrent movement from trouble to grace. Here, the sermon has two moments of turning from law to gospel: One situated in the text, and one situated in the world. For example, the sermon begins with trouble in the text and then moves to grace in the text. Then the sermon continues by exploring trouble in the world only to move to proclaiming grace in the world. By dividing the sermon between an encounter with the text and then an examination of the world, the sermon mirrors the flow of the text-application structure. It also allows the preacher two opportunities to proclaim a life changing moment of grace in the sermon, one in relation to trouble in the text and one in relation to trouble in the lives of the hearers.”[2]
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Additional Resources:
Craft of Preaching-Check out 1517’s resources on Lamentations 3:22-33.
Concordia Theology-Various helps from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, MO to assist you in preaching Lamentations 3:22-33.
Text Week-A treasury of resources from various traditions to help you preach Lamentations 3:22-33.
Lectionary Kick-Start-Check out this fantastic podcast from Craft of Preaching authors Peter Nafzger and David Schmitt as they dig into the texts for this Sunday!
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[1] Bo Giertz. Hammer of God. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Books, 2004. 146-147.
[2] https://concordiatheology.org/sermon-structs/dynamic/lawgospel-structure/
