Parallelism
The first 11 verses of chapter 4 are really neat. Jeremiah splits these verses up into two
sections. The first section, verses 1-6,
deals with Jerusalem before the fall to Babylon. The next 5 verses, verses 7-11, deal with
Jerusalem after the fall to Babylon.
What is even cooler is that the subjects of the sections are identical.
For example, the point of Lamentations 4:1-2 is that the “sons of
Zion” (the righteous ones in Jerusalem) were once regarded as precious but before
the fall they became regarded as earthen pots.
Earthen pots were so common and so easy to make that when one broke one
threw it away and just made another one.
If we look at verses 7-8 we can see that the “princes” (read sons of
Zion) were once pure but now after the fall they are covered in ash and
rejected. The holy ones of Jerusalem are
rejected in the opening verses in both of these sections of verses.
Lamentations 4:3-5 talks about how before the fall Jerusalem was
so much affected by the siege that mothers did not even have enough nourishment
to provide milk for their infants. They
once feasted, but because of their sin the people of Jerusalem now embrace ash
heaps. If we look at verses 9-10 we can
see a similar message. After the siege
is over people are left with the memories of the things they chose to do in
order to survive the siege – even cannibalism.
The theme of these middle verses in these sections is that Jerusalem had
fallen so far that even the children were not protected.
Lamentations 4:6 talks about how the life of the people before the
fall had brought about the judgment of Jerusalem at the hands of the
Babylonians. Lamentations 4:11 speaks to
the fact that after the fall the people are currently abiding in the wrath of
God. Each of the opening sections of
this chapter speaks about how our sinfulness compels us to the brink of God’s
wrath.
The parallelism of the first half of this chapter of lament speaks
to the patterns of judgment. When we
turn from God, we are subject to judgment and we reject the spiritual ones in
our life. When we are subject to
judgment we fall from grace. We fall
from the favor of God. When we fall from
the favor of God, the people around us suffer – especially the “innocents” like
children. We fall into the consequences
of our turning away. We then suffer the
wrath of God until we repent. The
pattern presented twice in these verses is clear.
Another Reminder about Spiritual Leadership
As we progress into the second half of this chapter, we get a
second look in this book at the importance of spiritual leadership. Here we have a revisit of one of the major
reasons the people fell into sin. The
people who were tasked with asserting true spirituality completely failed on
their job.
The priests and the prophets among Jerusalem shed innocent
blood. They lifted up the worship of the
wrong things. They proclaimed messages
that were not true.
So the Lord drove them away.
The Lord scattered them among the nations. They became fugitives and wanderers. They rejected God and God’s ways, so they
wandered the earth. This description
sounds pretty similar to a generation of Hebrew people who rejected God’s ways
so much that He made them wander in the desert for 40 years. The only difference is that in the case of
the Exodus those people had good spiritual leadership in Moses!
The point of it is really simple.
Reject God and wander the world looking for something you can’t ever
find. Being a spiritual leader doesn’t
exempt you from this reality. God
doesn’t show partiality based on a role in a community or a certain lineage or
nobility. Those who reject God are
scattered regardless of who they are.
A Nation We Could Not Save
The close of verse 17 is particularly haunting to me. “We watched a nation that we could not
save.” I am touched by this verse on two
levels.
First, there is a reality in this verse that you cannot do faith
or spirituality for someone else. You
cannot will anyone else into a right relationship with God. The person of faith desires for those around
them to be in a relationship with God.
But the truth is that the person of faith can only come along beside
those who genuinely want such a relationship for themselves. There is nothing that a faithful person can
do to force a person into a genuine relationship with God.
The second dynamic that this verse speaks to is the heart of the
faithful. In spite of wicked behavior
and persecution, the faithful person still looks on with love. The faithful person might realize they are
watching a train wreck about to happen between God and the people around them,
but they still look on with love. They
still desire repentance and a right relationship between God and those about to
be judged. They do not abandon the calling
based on the futility of the work.
That’s really a statement of faith. The person of faith does the task based on the
fact that God has asked it to be done rather than the possibility of
success. God called Jeremiah to speak
truth to Jerusalem regardless of whether the people would listen or not. God called Jesus to preach to the whole
people of Jerusalem and Judea whether they would listen to Him or crucify Him
for it. In the end, God asks for genuine
obedience and asks that we allow Him to define success.
I think that is far easier said than done. But maybe that’s just me.
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