Video Transcript: Lament 3 - Wrestling for Hope

We're looking at the lamentation the five laments that are attached to the back of Jeremiah's  prophecy. They're part of the great collection of Wisdom literature in the Old Testament in the  Hebrew Bible. They're part of the books of poetry which resonate with life on planet Earth in  relationship to God, as understood through the covenant between God and ancient Israel.  We've looked at a variety of the different types of Wisdom literature. focusing now on the  lamentation. We've come to lament number three, lament one was an acrostic poem 22 times three couplets that is three double lines of Hebrew poetry. In the series of three, only the first  letter of that first couplet is a consecutive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. And that was true  also for lament two lament One was really the voice of the woman, Jerusalem, who was now  in terrible loss and pain because Jerusalem had been destroyed. So you have this sense of a  personification of the city after the Babylonians have destroyed it. Lament two was very  similar, the same kind of acrostic poem with the same structure, but now more the voice, the  voice and perspective of Heaven in which the justification of God's actions and allowing the  Babylonians to do this is port put forward, and all tied into the covenant, particularly the  curses of the Covenant, but also with elements of and hints at Hope and restoration still to  come. The granddaddy or the big one, the finest expression of all of this is in lament number  three, which we're going to take a look at it this time. Here, there are again, three couplets in  each section and 22 sections. So we have the whole of the Hebrew alphabet represented with  the for the success of letters of the Hebrew alphabet, starting each section. But what's  different in this third lament is that rather than just as in the first and the second, laments,  just the first among those three couplets in a section, beginning with a successive letter of  the Hebrew alphabet. In this case, each of the three successive couplets begins with that  letter of the Hebrew alphabet. In other words, what I'm trying to say is that this one, even  more than the others, has been carefully crafted has been very finely tuned so that someone  spent a lot of time trying to create these laments as expressions of everything that one can  say from beginning to end or from A to Z, or from first to last. And whereas laments one and  two, each speak with a different voice, and do so in a nicely structured way. Lament three  speaks with another voice still, but in a very profoundly deeply structured way so that it  resonates even more fully with all of the lines of Hebrew poetry. What's true also in lament  three is that there's more notes of hope. Whereas lament, one was almost without hope. I'm  sitting here devastated and lament two was, yeah, you had it coming, but God has not  forgotten you. Lament three is much more of a dialogue between God and God's people. The  personification is now not of a woman who has seen affliction but a man who has seen  affliction. So it's a personification, similar to that of lament one, only this time, it's a man  who's aware of what's happening and wrestles with God doesn't just sit there saying, oh, woe  is me, but wrestles with God about what next? I am the man who has seen affliction by the  rod of the Lord's wrath, he has driven me away and made me walk in the darkness rather  than the light. Indeed, he has turned his hand against me again and again all day long. Now  notice, in our formulation of these laments that in laments one and two, that would have been the first verse, because it was the first section three, usually synonymous parallelism,  couplets put together, and the first of those would begin with the letter aleph, because it's the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. In this case, verses one, two and three, each begin in  Hebrew with the letter aleph, verses four, five and six, Bet verses 789 With gimel, etc, all the  way through the alphabet of the Hebrews. So you understand that there's much more crafting done. And notice now, many of us similar themes, personification, the voices that have a man similar in condition or situation to the woman in lament number one. He has made my skin  and my flesh grow old and it's broken my bones he has besieged me and surrounded me with  bitterness and hardship is made me dwell in darkness like those long dead. He has walled me  in so I cannot escape he has weighed me down with chains even when I call out for help he  shuts out my prayer he is barred my way with blocks of stone is made my past tricky like a  bear lying in wait like a lion in hiding. He has dragged me from the path and mangled me and  left me without help. He drew his bow and made me the target of his arrows. He pierced my  heart with arrows from his quiver I became a laughingstock of all my people. They mock me in song all day long is filled me with bitter herbs, and given me gall to drink, he has broken my  teeth with gravel, he has trampled me down in the dust I have been deprived to peace, I've 

forgotten what prosperity is. So I say my neighbor is gone and my splendor is gone. And all  the I'd hoped for from the Lord, I remember my affliction in my wandering, the bitterness and  the gall. I well remember them in my soul is Cat downcast within me. Yet, this I call to mind,  and therefore I have hope. Because of the Lord's great love, we are not consumed. For as  compassions never fail. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness, I say to  myself, The Lord is my portion. Therefore I will wait for him. Now that lament goes on with  those themes. I, I remember from my childhood, singing that great hymn of faith, Great is thy  faithfulness, and thinking what a profound and marvelous testimony of faith that is. And it  certainly is, I did not know when I was first singing that song that it emerged from the center  of the center of the lamentions, not only from the lamentation themselves, but from the  central lament, lament three. And not only that, but from the near center of that lament. And  what you have is a song reflecting the faithfulness of God in so many good ways, coming from a context in which the world has fallen apart. You can see through the rest of the verses of  lament number three, all of these things are being said again, what has happened to us and  how that we have fallen, and how things have gone awry for us and how life has turned on its  heel, and everything is destruction, and destitution. What is also true and lament number  three is that there's a greater sense that God has initiated this, and that it's not the last  chapter to be spoken, that there is still something yet to come out of this difficulty out of this  disaster out of this pain, torture and suffering, that this is not the final word that will take  place, but rather one step along a journey that has not yet reached its best results. Here's the end of lament three, Lord, You have heard their insults and all their plots against me what my  enemies whisper and mutter against me all day long. Look at them sitting or standing, they  mock me in their songs, pay them back with what they deserve, oh Lord, for what their hands  have done, put a veil over their hearts, and they may curse the curse may be on them,  pursue them in anger and destroy them from under the heavens of the Lord. Notice the  confidence that this lament comes to, whereas lament, one just said, Oh, woe is me. Why did  this happen? See, all my children are gone, man am I in pain, and lament two was the picture  from heaven saying, this has happened for good reason, and the curses of the Covenant are  kicking in. Now in lament three, there's the sense of, we're in it together, Lord, and what's  happening to them as a reflection on you. And I know that you're bigger than this, and I know  that there's something ahead, there's an outcome still ahead. This is the high point of the five laments. It's the most intricately developed of all of the laments in that sense of being a more finely tuned acrostic poem, but it's also more comprehensive than any of the others almost as if all of the themes that are probed in the other laments are now brought into together this  one lament and, and flowing through its many lyrical lines. Now, the voice and perspective is  that of a human man, who functions in much the same role as the widow in lament one. Here. The difference though, is that the man is much more aware of the struggles that are going on, but also the struggles that are going on in the heart of God as well. YAHWAH is one who is  wrestling with what to do, not only knowing that this judgment is the natural and responsible  outcome of the curses of the Covenant, the Sinai covenant, but knowing that This cannot be  the end of things. This cannot be the last chapter, something more next needs to take place.  How can this terrible judgment come out in a different tune? A different song, a different note  or melody, a different color or shade? How can we make what all evil has happened? Turn into blessing and hope and prosperity. So through lament number three, there's much more of an  anticipation of God's grace yet to come, and the hope that it will be the final word spoken to  this horrible turn of affairs, that this is not the last word, but prosperity will return and the  renewal of the relationship between God and God's people. Once again, the key theme is that  Yahweh has actively accosted Jerusalem to tear it down, through Of course, the actions of the  Babylonian armies. But this has happened because God's people have forgotten who they are, and whose they are that they belong not to themselves, but to the God who has saved them  has brought them into the Promised Land. These things are all a result of the curses of the  Sinai covenant coming to pass, but the covenant is bigger than the curses. And so we're  going to see more on those themes. In the next looks the next two elements and in our  reflections on the whole of these things.