First Reading Lamentations 2:1-9
Second Reading 2 Corinthians 1:23-2:11
1How the Lord in his anger has humiliated daughter Zion! He has thrown down from heaven to earth the splendor of Israel; he has not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger.
2The Lord has destroyed without mercy all the dwellings of Jacob; in his wrath he has broken down the strongholds of daughter Judah; he has brought down to the ground in dishonor the kingdom and its rulers.
3He has cut down in fierce anger all the might of Israel; he has withdrawn his right hand from them in the face of the enemy; he has burned like a flaming fire in Jacob, consuming all around.
4He has bent his bow like an enemy, with his right hand set like a foe; he has killed all in whom we took pride in the tent of daughter Zion; he has poured out his fury like fire.
5The Lord has become like an enemy; he has destroyed Israel; He has destroyed all its palaces, laid in ruins its strongholds, and multiplied in daughter Judah mourning and lamentation.
6He has broken down his booth like a garden, he has destroyed his tabernacle; the LORD has abolished in Zion festival and sabbath, and in his fierce indignation has spurned king and priest.
7The Lord has scorned his altar, disowned his sanctuary; he has delivered into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; a clamor was raised in the house of the LORD as on a day of festival.
8The LORD determined to lay in ruins the wall of daughter Zion; he stretched the line; he did not withhold his hand from destroying; he caused rampart and wall to lament; they languish together.
9Her gates have sunk into the ground; he has ruined and broken her bars; her king and princes are among the nations; guidance is no more, and her prophets obtain no vision from the LORD.
The Book of Lamentations is not one we read often, mainly, hopefully, because it seems incongruent with the majority of our lives. When might we voice the words of Jeremiah as he mourns the destruction of Jerusalem? Now, it seems, would be a good time—because we’re mourning what we have lost. We’ve lost the illusion of safety that we try so hard to build, as if we can, with the right application of modern medicine, become immune to our biological limitations. We have lost the sense of safety as if leaders and experts can, with the right application of knowledge and will, solve the problems confronting us. We’ve lost the world that was—a booming economy and a mythic progress. In some form the struggle always returns. God’s grace, then, appears in this lament. We have the words to voice unspeakable things we need say as the world is falling apart. Maybe God is teaching or correcting or challenging us. Maybe we need to acknowledge our sin and repent. But that instinct is the opening of God’s help—the catharsis of lament returns us to sure footing where we can stand in the presence of God again.
God, forgive us for our love of the world that was—with its violence and injustice and unfairness. We repent of the ways we live in the world that was. Help us to live in the world that is coming, on the other side of the cross of Jesus. We pray in his name. Amen.
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