Lamentations 1:1-6; Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4; Lamentations 3:19-26 

My typical pattern in beginning to prepare a message like this one is to print out the Lectionary readings for a weekend, and take them out to the woods somewhere on Monday afternoon. Then, while I’m walking, and in a context of prayer, I read each of the passages – usually out loud – until one of those readings ‘emerges’ in my mind as the one that I will focus on in the coming week. (Hopefully that is due to the leading of the Holy Spirit, and not just my personal preferences!) 

Sometimes I will read a passage and I’ll know immediately that this will not be the passage for the week! And that was the case this week… or so I thought!  I have to tell you, having read Lamentations 1: 1 – 6, I thought to myself, “Now there is a depressing passage! I sure wouldn’t want to have to preach on that one.”  (Or, “I’ll leave that one up to HeyYoung next time around!) 

But there was something a bit unusual in the Lectionary for this week. The Lectionary has four readings for each week: The Old Testament (or, Hebrew Bible), the Psalm, the Epistle (from the New Testament) and the Gospel.  For this week, the Old Testament passage was a choice between Lamentations 1 and a selection from Habakkuk, both of which are difficult readings for much the same reason (kind of ‘down.’)  ‘The Psalm’ though, was actually another passage from Lamentations (from chapter three). 

So back to my walk in the woods… I read Lamentations 1 and think, “Wow, depressing!” Then I read Habakkuk, and think, “Not much better!”  But then I’m back to Lamentations, and I read some verses from chapter three… and God says, “You’re going to preach on both of these this week. The message is in the combination of these two passages.” 

So, if you feel the need coming on to wander out of the room sometime before the end of this message, try to hang in there at least until we get to the second reading, OK?  It will make a difference! 

I’d like to talk with you today about surviving tragedy. When Life Falls Apart… What Then? And I feel the need to give you just a bit of context as I begin. I am sharing this message, obviously, as a human being, and also as a pastor.  In both of those roles I have at various times “walked through the valley of the shadow of death.”  I.e., I have experienced – as everyone does at some point in life – personal pain to some degree. I’ve lost loved ones and friends to death and disease… to accidents and suicide. I’ve been hurt and betrayed, I’ve been disappointed and I’ve also been guilty of things I wish I hadn’t done. And all the rest. Just like you. 

In my role as a pastor, I have walked with many, many people over the past 27 years who have experienced an even broader sad array of pain and suffering. And you don’t forget that. 

This message, however, is not about what I’ve learned in dealing with tragedy. Such a message would be of very limited value, I would think. It would only be helpful, if at all, to those who have experienced exactly the same kinds of pain as I have.  And who knows? This message, instead, is an examination of what God may be saying to us in the general context of tragedy; particularly through the prophet Jeremiah. 

The place of my own experience in this, then, is very slight – and that is simply to say that in the trying times of my life to this point, I have found this teaching to be true and helpful. We’re not going to be comparing levels of hurt or pain – how can we? I’m not hinting or trying to imply that I have experienced the same level of personal devastations as any of you. (I know I haven’t in some cases.) But the affirmation of this message is that there is always hope, no matter what circumstances we find ourselves in. And even when we can’t imagine how it could be, I believe that there is healing available. I’ve found this true in my own experience, but more so, the assumption today is that God’s Word is reliable, and we read of constant hope in the Scriptures. 

We read two weeks ago from Jeremiah 8 where Jeremiah asks, “Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there?”  This morning, from the book of Lamentations we will read Jeremiah’s answer to his own question: “Yes, there is.” 

Lamentations is a book traditionally attributed to the Prophet Jeremiah. It is a series of five poems, or Laments.  A lament, as you likely know, is a passionate expression of grief or sorrow. It is mourning and weeping. In this case, Jeremiah, (who as we saw a couple of weeks ago is finely attuned to the pain and hurt of his people) is lamenting the fall of Jerusalem. 

If we’ve grown up in the church, we’ve probably heard these words so many times, that it’s easy to minimize their importance in their own context. But this was much more than a military setback! Maybe the closest we can get to putting ourselves in Jeremiah’s mindset, is to try and recall the shock and angst we felt as a nation just after 9-11. Now go a step further, and try and picture not only these symbols of our nation – the World Trade Towers – being destroyed, but imagine that an invading army has marched in and has deported the entire population of greater New York city! 

This is more like what Jeremiah was living through. And if the loss of Jerusalem and the dismantling of the hub of his nation weren’t enough, remember that in his day, the national identity was so tied to the religious beliefs of the people that they were inseparable. The people were not only grieving for the loss of friends, and family, property, and nation… they were mourning their abandonment by God himself. 

They were facing questions that they never wanted to consider: “Have we been mistaken?” “Has God abandoned us?” “Is Jehovah truly God?” “Are we alone?” “What next?” 

You can tell by Jeremiah’s words that the memories of this catastrophe were still very vivid in his mind. He was reeling, no mistake about it. These opening verses are powerfully written. Listen to Lamentations 1: 1 – 6… 

*** 

These are clearly the words of a man whose heart has been broken. They are the words of someone for whom the bottom has dropped out, someone whose life has fallen apart. 

We, thankfully, have not likely had to deal with the loss of a nation, or home, in this literal sense. But I think that one reason why Lamentations is still such a powerful writing in our Scripture is that in the specific expression of his pain, many people over the centuries since then have found a voice to match at least the tone of their own hurt. We may not have felt that, but we’ve felt like that. And as Jeremiah did, we eventually begin to look – maybe not even believing that it is possible – for a way out. 

In my experience of working with people who are walking through these valleys, this moment of beginning to look for healing does not always come immediately. There is typically, at first, a spiritual and emotional numbness, there is a sense, almost an acceptance that this pain will be permanent. That we have been permanently changed and that the pain will never go away. I will always feel like this. 

But even as the dust and the smoke of the World Trade Towers eventually settled, as a metaphor of life, the dust of our own tragedies also settles and we find ourselves at a moment of decision. Simply to ask, ‘Will I look for hope or not?’ 

And I think that this is pretty much where Jeremiah is in the third of his poems. Verses 19 – 26 of chapter 3 profoundly express the understandable ambivalence of someone whose life has truly fallen apart, yet, perhaps for the first time, is daring to look out, over the devastation which still is there, and allow himself to think about hope. 

I’d like to read that section now, and then we’re going to focus in on the one thing that is central to his hope. It is a ‘bottom line’ belief, one that I’m convinced we must find if there is to be any healing in our own times of testing. 

Please notice first, that there is no denial in these words. The way to healing after tragedy is not by denying that we hurt, or by trying to simply forget that it happened. Jeremiah says, 

¹⁹ The thought of my suffering and homelessness is bitter beyond words.

 ²⁰ I will never forget this awful time, as I grieve over my loss. 

He’s not going to forget it. His circumstances have surely changed, his life is different, altered forever, at least from the perspective of this world, because of this tragedy. Healing – real healing – will incorporate the reality of his situation. 

Again, to use 9-11 as a metaphor, the Twin Towers will never return. The lives lost will never be regained. The memories will always be with us. Even as the dust settled in the beginning, just after their collapse, what was revealed was devastation and wreckage.  It took much time and effort to clear that away; and now there is a gap, an emptiness where buildings once stood. But even as plans are currently being made for something new to go there, no one will ever forget what once was. Jeremiah uses the word ‘grieve’ in the present tense – it is not ‘over’, and in a sense it will never be. Neither Jeremiah nor the rest of his people were going to forget the pain of their loss. 

But in an amazing step of faith, he allows himself to ‘remember’ something that he had been taught and believed from his youth. Listen again: 

²² The faithful love of the Lord never ends!
      His mercies never cease…

²⁵ The Lord is good to those who depend on him, to those who search for him. 

I would suggest to you today that the key here is the word ‘good’.  The love and mercy of God never end because the “Lord is good.”  God is good. 

To believe that God is good in the midst of tragedy is not only a step of faith, I’m convinced that it is the most critical and foundational step of faith necessary to any type of spiritual and emotional healing. 

And perhaps the reason why so many struggle to find a way out of their spiritual despair when life has fallen apart is because believing that God is good requires the readjustment of often an entire belief system. It requires, for some, a new understanding of who God is. It requires a new understanding of the place and meaning and the purpose of prayer. 

For example, if our theology (either spoken or unspoken), or our ‘picture’ of God is of a Being whose main function with regard to individuals is to make our lives pain free, or easy, we’ll have a hard time reconciling that belief with times of suffering and tragedy. We’ll have to ask, ‘What happened?’  Either God is weak, or God is not good. Because I am suffering. 

Likewise, if my theology of prayer is that God must answer all of my requests (in essence making me god,) then what does that say about God when a fervent request is denied?  It says the same thing: “There is either something wrong with me, or there is something wrong with God.” Mainly, that in refusing to answer this prayer in the affirmative, God is proven to not be good.  He doesn’t do what I want! 

Yet Jesus himself, of course, in his most urgent prayer, in the Garden of Gethsemane, showed us the model for all prayer. Saying, “Father, take this cup away from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” And God’s answer to that prayer was… no. I will not take it from you. 

If we are building on the foundation of a conviction of God’s goodness, we are led to some different conclusions. Life is messier, to be sure. There is still rarely any sort of understanding of why certain events were allowed to transpire. We may not comprehend God’s ‘nos’ or ‘waits’. But we learn to accept them. 

We then, open the door to what I call the ‘eternal perspective’.  We can at least start to grasp what it means that God himself, and certainly his plans and his will, are eternal in scope. And, slowly perhaps, we realize that meaning is not necessarily found in the moment, but in the ‘bigger picture’. 

 The saying “Time heals all wounds” is, of course not true, and has been used hurtfully by many well meaning people. But while time doesn’t heal the wounds, I’ve come to believe that wisdom and peace rarely come apart from the passage of a significant amount of time. I wonder if that is because only through the movement of time are we able to catch a glimpse of this ‘eternal perspective.’ Being able to ‘step back’ – or to put it in Habakkuk’s words, to “let go, and know that I am God.”  And to know that God is good. 

One of the places that I like to walk on my Monday afternoons is a relatively new park just outside of Mt. Holly called “Smithville Park”.  There are some very nice trails there that meander through the cool woods along the Rancocas Creek.  On the far end of the park is a short ‘nature loop trail.’ There are signs in there pointing out the effects of erosion, and identifying various trees and plants along the way. 

One unmistakable sight on that loop comes at a sharp bend in that trail. It is a huge White Oak.  Huge is not an exaggeration; it is something like 19 feet in circumference and obviously very old.  The first time I saw it was about a year or so ago. I can remember that I was out walking that afternoon, praying about something that was going on in my life, or in the church that was weighing very heavily on my mind. And I remember seeing that tree, and I had an overwhelming sense of the passage of time. And a reminder that God is not stuck in this moment, but is eternal. And as a child of God, somehow that eternal nature impacts me and my temporary problems as well. 

I thought – “I wonder what was happening in the world when this tree was just a sapling?”  I thought about all the wars that had been fought, and lives that had come and gone, and all the while this tree was quietly growing and thriving. 

Well, last Monday I was back there, and this time I was thinking and praying about this passage, and that “Eternal Perspective” that begins to dawn as we lean on the belief of God’s goodness.  And I came to that same tree again, and this time I noticed a sign on the trail that said that the tree is estimated to be somewhere up to 375 years old! Again, the perspective was pretty amazing.  Dutch pioneers were paddling up the Delaware River and just beginning to settle Pennsylvania when this tree started to grow.  When Ludwig Van Beethoven was born, this tree was already 100 years old! 

And then I remembered when I was thinking similar things a year ago. I remembered that I was carrying what seemed to be a very heavy weight at that time. But I couldn’t remember what it was. It was gone. Over. 

Now, as I’ve said, not all our weights will be removed in that sense. Some we will remember – and should remember. But I believe that the pain of those weights is what slowly dissolves in the presence of an unshakable belief in the goodness of God.  Jeremiah realized that his hope, his only hope, lay in the goodness of God.  So he says that he dared to hope as he remembered: 

The faithful love of the Lord never ends!
      His mercies never cease.

 ²³ Great is his faithfulness… 

May God in his gentle grace and mercy give each of us that same eternal perspective, as we turn to him, trusting in his goodness, even when we can’t understand it.