DAY 317

COURAGE TO ADMIT

Lamentations 1 & 2 and Hebrews 10:1-18

As we continue in Hebrews we come to a short book of the Old Testament—Lamentations. We will spend only two days reading Lamentations, and I will cover most of it today, and concentrate on all of Hebrews 10 tomorrow.

“The Book of Lamentations is made up of five poems—each an expression of grief over the fall of Jerusalem. Like a eulogy at a funeral, these laments are intended to mourn a loss—in this case the loss of a nation.

One point of this book is to realize that God can handle our “laments,” he can handle our crying out and our complaining. The latter half of chapter 3 implies that the purpose behind the book’s graphic depiction of sorrow and suffering was to produce hope in the God whose compassion is “new every morning” (v.23) and whose faithfulness is great even to a people who have been condemned for their own unfaithfulness. The author, while not identified in the book itself, may have been the prophet Jeremiah, who was said to have “uttered a lament for Josiah” (2 Chronicles 35:25)” – from the English Standard Bible’s Introduction.

The Lord is in his right, for I have rebelled against his word” (2:18a)—here is the quote that while chapter 1 and 2 chronicle what has happened and cry out to God—here is the acknowledgement that what God is doing he has every right to do. I think that takes courage. I just came from two Bible studies today and in them we talked about the holiness of God and how we are not holy—how we make mistakes—how we (dare I say it) sin! We rebel against God: sometimes we do it because we just don’t think, sometimes we do it because we let the worst part of a situation get a hold of us, sometimes we do it because we are caught up in sin, AND sometimes we do it because we are rebelling—flat out rebelling—against God and his Word.

Can we have the courage to acknowledge where we stand in this regard? Maybe one of the things that can help is what we read in chapter 3:23-24, “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercy never comes to an end, they are new every morning, great is your faithfulness.” Here is a prophet, overcome with grief, grief at what his people have brought upon themselves and he goes deeply into God and God’s “steadfast love.” It is there, it is always there, when the “chips are down” it is the only place to go—and sometimes is takes courage to look in the mirror and identify where we are rebelling.