Lamentations is like a eulogy delivered at a funeral.
Only instead of mourning a person’s passing, the death is Israel’s and her Temple.
The lamenter mourns the destruction of his home in Israel.
His language is dismal, his images are bleak, his city is dead, his people are grieved, his home is lost.
So, laments fill his speech.
Israel had crumbled, the temple was trampled, and her people had been taken abroad.
So, Israel surely wondered, had they been utterly rejected by God?
Lamentations offers laments to a people aghast and awed,
laments that give words to the grieved, confused, and lost.
But these laments also freely admit all of Israel’s many sins.
It was their evil that destroyed the temple. It was their filth that caused it to fall.
Their transgressions brought this grief. Their uncleanliness was the cause of it all.
And so, they lament.
They pay their respects, they bring their guilt to Israel’s grave.
They own their filth, admit their wrong, and wail for the death they’ve laid.
Maybe God would hear, maybe God would save, maybe their words would bring them back?
Maybe their city could be raised?
And the answer Lamentations gives is the one that God already gave.
For hundreds of years ago Moses predicted a time when this grief would come,
when Israel’s guilt would cost them their home and God’s time in the temple would be done.
Moses wrote that Israel would sin wildly, the people would be led astray.
So, God would drive them out from their land and their temple would become a grave.
But through this death their sins would be repaid.
From this death a remnant would be raised.
So, as the people mourned and lamented, as they wept and prayed,
they wondered if Moses’ words were about them.
Maybe these were those predicted days.
Which is why in the middle of the laments we hear a tiny
glimpse of hope in the midst of all this pain and torment.
The lamenter says, “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end.
They are new every morning. Great is his faithfulness”
But then the book ends, and it ends with what sounds like an unanswered question.
God will restore us as we have expected, unless we have been utterly rejected.
So, which one is true?
That is the message at the end of Lamentations.
Doubt and questioning, right next to hopeful expectations.
But the people’s hopes were not mistaken.
For God did bring his people back, he did rebuild their temple.
And yet, like Moses before and like Lamentations, with Jesus’ arrival the laments start to experience a revival.
Jesus said the temple would be destroyed again, but this time it would be final.
The temple’s stones would be thrown down, and they would never again receive a reprisal.
But as Moses predicted and as Lamentations relayed, through this death, their sins would be repaid.
From this death, a remnant would be raised.
And that’s because Jesus said the true temple is himself.
He would become their grief. He would be trampled and lamented.
His life would be lost. Jesus himself would be utterly rejected.
So once again like Moses, Jesus, and Lamentations,
we now lament because our sin destroyed not just a building or a home or a nation.
We lament because our sins killed Jesus.
We are responsible for his devastation.
It is our evil that destroyed God’s final temple. It is our filth that caused him to fall.
Our transgressions brought this grief. Our uncleanliness is the cause of it all.
But now, if we lament, if we pay our respects, if we bring our guilt to Jesus’ grave,
if we own our filth, admit our wrong, and wail over the death we’ve laid, God will hear. God will save.
Jesus will bring us back if Jesus is raised.
[Moment of silence]
For unlike Israel and her earthly temple of stone,
the temple of Jesus’ body was not permanently overthrown.
Jesus rose from the dead, so that we may know that we have an eternal home that is eternally protected.
Now we can have an answer to the end of Lamentations.
Because Jesus was resurrected, we will never be utterly rejected.
Hey, I'm David with Spoken Gospel.
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