GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
LAMENTATIONS 1:21-22
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21 “They heard my groaning, but there is no one to comfort me.
All my enemies have heard about my trouble.
They rejoiced about what you have done.
O bring the day you promised so they can become like me!
There are many places in the Scriptures where God promises judgment on the nations. In Jeremiah 25:15 he says, “Take from my hand this cup filled with the wine of my wrath, and make all the nations, to whom I send you, drink it.” And Obadiah foresaw this: “The Day of the LORD is near for all the nations! As you have done, it will be done to you” (Obadiah 1:15). So even though the nations might have rejoiced about Judah’s troubles, the Lord had already proclaimed his will about them.
Here again we see how clearly the sad song of the prophet takes us to the second cross, the cross of Jesus, who more than anyone else had no one to comfort him. “Why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46) was not spoken to his mother, or his companions, nor even the Jews and Romans who tormented him. It was spoken to his holy Father, with whom he had shared perfect unity in the holy trinity (John 1:1; John 10:30). But in his suffering he was rejected even by the Father with whom he had always existed in eternity before the creation began. And the Holy Spirit, the Comforter for all who believe (John 14:26) was likewise gone and turned away from him, because the Father and Spirit must be one just as the Father and Son are one, and what the Father does for mankind– even to the point of punishing his Son– must be done equally by the Holy Spirit in complete agreement with his perfect will. And even as the Holy Spirit has all the fullness of the Godhead and is fully and completely God (Acts 5:3-4), he is of the same essence as the Father. When the Father forsook the Son to punish him for our sins, the Spirit did the same. As he did at the creation, he was hovering over what was done, and agreed in this case with his ominous silence: It was good. For mankind, it was necessary, tragic, horrifying, but good and right as well.
This verse sustains us as we bear our (third) crosses, the crosses of daily struggles, tests, and vindictive assaults from the devil, because we are reminded that God has also promised a day of punishment for the nations. By “nations,” we understand both the people on earth who oppose God and we, his people, but also those unseen beings who opposed God in the early days of the created world and who were judged according to God’s perfect holiness. The devil and the fallen angels will finally be judged. The Apostle was given a vision about this: “The devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever” (Revelation 20:10).
But God’s holy people appear in that same vision, even in the same set of verses, for John saw “the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades (that is, the grave) gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged” (Revelation 20:12-13). And everyone with faith in Christ will be carried from the judgment directly into Paradise. We have nothing to fear because our sins were covered by the Great Cross of Christ, for our sakes. Necessary, tragic, horrifying, but good and right as well.
22 “Let all their wickedness come before you,
and deal with them severely
as you have dealt so severely with me because of all my rebellion,
for my groans are many, and my heart is sick.”
The first chapter ends with a prayer that God would punish the wicked for their sins. We met the expression “done severely” in 1:12, and here it is again twice. The verb shows a violent, severe act.
The end of the chapter has been both a plea for mercy and the kind of prayer (imprecatory) that asks God to bring down his wrath on those who sin against him. It is not as if the Christian says, “If I have to get hurt, then they should get theirs, too.” Rather, it is the prayer “Your will be done.” For if God’s will were not done, then the devil would rage and triumph over all of creation, and smash at the walls of heaven’s gardens, and defile God’s holy throne. But rather, as Luther teaches: “Thy will be done, dear Father, and not the will of the devil or of our enemies, nor of those who would persecute and suppress your holy Word or prevent your kingdom from coming; and grant that whatever we must suffer on its account, we may patiently bear and overcome, so that our poor flesh may not yield or fall away through weakness or indolence” (Large Catechism).
When the Christian confesses, “my groans are many, and my heart is sick,” we have the promise of the gospel to relieve the pain of our guilt. “He has torn us to pieces,” the prophet gently says, “but he will heal us. He has injured us, but he will bind up our wounds” (Hosea 6:1). And then that same prophet, Hosea, who was condemning the unrepentance of Israel, looked ahead to the cross of Christ and foresaw: “On the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence” (Hosea 6:2), which Luther said “is so magnificent that it cannot refer to the temporal kingdom of Judah” (LW 18:31), but must be a case of Israel saying one thing and meaning something wicked (in their case, that their punishment would be very brief and inconsequential), but which was used by God to point to the truth and the cross of Jesus. Caiaphas did the very same thing before the Sanhedrin (John 11:50-51).
What a beautiful cross our Savior bore! All of the ugliness and shame of our sins was there upon it, but– and this is the point– so was he upon it, the willing sacrifice to rescue us. O blessed prophetic poet who wrote these Lamentations, to carry us back and back again to the cross, to ponder the depth of his love, the thoroughness of his sacrifice, and the glory of his accomplishment for our sakes!
Jesus, I will ponder now on your holy passion;
With your Spirit me endow for such meditation.
Grant that I in love and faith may the image cherish
Of your suff’ring, pain, and death, that I may not perish.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – Lamentations 1:21-22 Necessary, tragic, horrifying, but good and right as well.