GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
LAMENTATIONS 2:9-10
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9 Her gates have sunk into the ground;
he has broken and shattered her bars;
her king and princes are among the nations.
There is no law.
Even her prophets have had no vision from the LORD.
The strange detail of the sunken gates tells us that either (1) the threshold was destroyed, probably even torn up out of its foundations, so that the gates sank down into useless angles, or more probably (2) the gates of the temple (or of the city) had been torn away in the siege and had been flung away into soft earth, where a little rain and ruin and time left them sinking down like so much junk in the lawn. Even the strong bars of the doors– better security in many ways than modern locks– broke; shattered into fragments by battering rams (see Hosea 11:6; Judges 16:3).
But gates and bars were not the only protection for the people. The king and his princes were gone– deported out “among the nations.” The word for “nations” here is the plural of the word “Gentile.” The holy people were transported to places and people that were ceremonially unclean.
More than that, the law, which was in place to protect and govern the people, was “no more.” Not that God removed the law from his people, but they removed the law from their hearts, cast aside worship, and did not listen to preaching and teaching, until they found that their preachers and teachers were taken away. But what about those few prophets who remained? Remember that Daniel had been removed to Babylon with the first group of exiles “in the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah” (Daniel 1:1). Ezekiel had also been removed to Babylon, about eight years later (Ezekiel 1:1-2). Then Jeremiah was forced to travel to Egypt with the thugs who killed the governor of Judea during the third great deportation of Jews to Babylon. Whatever prophets were left, old men or students of the school of the prophets, they did not receive any messages or visions from God apart from those given to Jeremiah. The Lord was silent during the captivity, forcing the people to search the Scriptures to discover his will in his holy word, such as when Daniel learned the date when the captivity would come to an end (Daniel 9:2,24).
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion
sit on the ground and are silent.
They have thrown dust on their heads
and put on sackcloth;
the virgin girls of Jerusalem
have bowed their heads to the ground.
The old men and the young women grieve. This puts us in mind of the second cross, the cross of Christ, although not with precise or one-to-one comparisons for the girls. But let us take up the elders of Zion who grieve for what has happened. There weren’t many men, elders, who were troubled and horrified by the crucifixion of Jesus, but there were a few. Without counting any of the apostles, or men whose ages we do not know, such as Lazarus (John 11:44), Bartimaeus (Mark 10:46), Zacchaeus (Luke 19:8-9), the former fiend of the Gerasenes (Mark 5:15), there are two that come to mind. Since Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea were members of the Sanhedrin (Mark 15:43; John 3:1) and both were Christians, we know that they did not approve of the crucifixion. We must even conclude that they were not consulted when it came time for the illegal vote about Jesus in the night between Thursday and Friday. Their silence ended when Jesus gave up his spirit in death. They went to Pilate and asked for his body, and they gave two expensive gifts for Jesus’ burial. First, Joseph gave his own tomb, newly cut out of rock in the burial garden near the hill of the crucifixion (John 19:41). No one had ever been laid there. And Nicodemus brought a large amount, 75 pounds, of myrrh and aloes, embedded in strips of linen (John 19:39-40). Together they did their best to quickly prepare Jesus’ body for burial. It is most likely that as they were wrapping his body, they washed it of his blood as well as they could in the light of the setting sun. Since we are more or less certain that Jesus was not crucified in the Kidron Valley (east of the city) but in some other location, west or possibly north, the amount of sunlight at sunset would have been a problem, and they needed to hurry on account of the Sabbath anyway.
Watching the men do this were the women who had taken care of the needs of Jesus and the disciples. While mostly married or widowed (and therefore not virgins) they were spiritually the women of the true Jerusalem, which is the holy Christian Church (John 1:47), “the Jerusalem that is above” (Galatians 4:26). They would come after the Sabbath was ended, early Sunday morning, to complete the task– only to find that he had risen from the dead (Mark 16:1-13)!
All of them bore the terrible cross of their grief for their crucified Savior. Who has had a sorrow like theirs? There can be no grief, no tragedy, no weight so heavy as that carried upon the hearts of those faithful believers between Friday afternoon and Sunday. Only the sorrow of Christ himself in his suffering was worse, a sorrow that overwhelmed him to the point of death (Mark 14:34). But what does the believing heart pray? “You will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay” (Psalm 16:10). And again: “He has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help” (Psalm 22:24).
But these good Christians teach us how faith acts when the head, mind, and reason fail to understand. Faith moves forward. The gifts of Joseph and Nicodemus were well used. The desire of the women was to look after him even now, not understanding that he was soon to rise and give them a greater gift, the greatest gift of all.
And as we bear our crosses, we know that, like those ancient Christians, we do not always know, or understand what is going on. Our reason is not up to the task of knowing the mind of God (Romans 11:34). But we bear up under our burdens out of faith. He has either laid our burdens upon us himself, or else he has allowed them to come to us, but for some good that he has in mind. Cheer up! The cross is therefore a gift. Our salvation does not depend in the least on the way we bear up under our crosses, nor do they merit anything. They are not tests, but more like quizzes, for our Teacher to see what needs to be taught next. Humility, patience, forgiveness, generosity, perseverance, chastity, trust– will these seven do for a start? There are other lessons besides these. Rejoice in your Lord, and rejoice in the tasks and even the burdens of your life. “In the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling” (Psalm 27:5).
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 2:9-10 A sorrow like theirs