GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
LAMENTATIONS 3:1
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Chapter 3 brings us to the center of Lamentations. It is just barely the longest chapter by word count with 381 words. Chapter 1 has 365 words, and chapter 2 has 380. The last chapters are considerably shorter (3:1 is the center of the book). The chapter is numbered differently due to the acrostic style and the Hebrew accents, and so a 3-line verse in chapters 1 or 2 is the same length as three single-verse lines in chapter 3. Therefore the acrostic in chapter 3 places the same letter at the beginning of each of three verses (aleph, aleph, aleph, beth, beth, beth, and so on). However, the poetry sometimes moves along either according to or not according to the acrostic structure, but always according to the needs of the poet.
This chapter focuses even more clearly on the Suffering Servant of God, the Messiah, Jesus Christ. It is in the same league as Isaiah 53 or Psalm 22. It also has the clearest gospel passages in Lamentations, where we have seen almost only law in the form of grief so far.
3:1 I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of his fury.
The suffering of the nation is described through the eyes of one man from here to 3:21. He calls himself a geber, a word meaning “male” or just “an individual.” We might say “I am the one,” or “I am the guy.”
Under the first cross, the cross of our author who suffered from the Babylonians, there was the immediate and painful rod of the Lord’s own fury. God used the Babylonians as his instrument, his means of punishing Israel in order to call them to repentance.
Under the second cross, we might think of the last hours of Maundy Thursday when Jesus was finished praying in Gethsemane. He said to his sleeping disciples, “Look, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up, we should be going. See, my betrayer has arrived” (Matthew 26:45-46). There is more to this than the basic act of submitting to his arrest. Christ is head of the church (Ephesians 5:23; Colossians 1:18). Our Lord wanted to submit to and endure everything that his people would endure.
He was going to endure the punishment we deserve in hell, but he also wanted to endure the third cross that we carry as well. It isn’t as if he asks us to bear anything that he did not. We don’t always spend time thinking about this during Lent or especially during Holy Week; even setting aside forty days each year to consider his sufferings does not give us enough time to consider every beautiful diamond of his glory, nor every bloody drop of his pain. Nor every gift he gave.
The Head of the Church submitted to endure suffering from those who claimed the title of head of the church for themselves: the Pharisees, the high priest and the other chief priests, the scribes, all of whom criticized so much of what he so innocently did. But there was also one of the disciples of Jesus, who were going to build his New Testament Church on Peter’s great confession that Jesus is “the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16). Judas studied under Jesus, was present for every single lesson the Savior taught, but learned nothing at all. This hurts any teacher, but for Jesus? Judas was not only his follower and his disciple. Judas was one of his friends. “If an enemy were insulting me, I could endure it; if a foe were rising against me, I could hide. But it is you, a man like myself, my companion, my close friend, with whom I once enjoyed sweet fellowship at the house of God, as we walked about among the worshipers” (Psalm 55:12-14).
Judas was, as we would say, in the fourth year of his studies under Jesus. He had been taught the doctrine of the Holy Scriptures and the true meaning of the Law such as the Ten Commandments, he had been taught the work and nature of the Father, of the Holy Spirit, and of Jesus himself. He had been taught about prayer and witnessed the first recitation of the Lord’s Prayer from the Lord’s own lips. He had learned the whole catechism. He had learned about the sacrament of baptism and had himself baptized (John 4:1). He had witnessed many miracles, and had even performed miracles and drove out demons (Mark 6:13). His fall was so very far. His despair was so utterly terrible! When he betrayed Jesus and realized what he had done, the lessons of the Lord were torn from his mind by the devil, who had entered into his heart. The devil stole every last possibility of comfort and faith from Judas. The devil killed him.
The Lord’s agony over this is like the agony that so many feel in different ways today, as they carry their crosses. How does a parent ache for a child who has fallen away from the faith? How does a husband feel about a wife who does not care about Jesus, or who thinks there is nothing to be gained from the simple act of worship on Sunday? How does a pastor feel about the faces that are no longer in the pews? This is all the work of the devil, beating us, pounding us, flailing at us, to make us bleed and lose hope. Our afflictions are felt keenly, really, personally, by our Lord who suffered as we do. He carried our sorrows (Isaiah 53:4).
This is what the Father put him through, and what he took up willingly, to know our pain, and to die the death we deserve. But his suffering lifted away our guilt, and made our crosses bearable. While there is life, there is hope. And if someone has died, seemingly in unbelief, we leave them in the Lord’s hands, not knowing whether there was truly unbelief or only some sinful spite to cause anguish, to cause doubt and grief where there was no need.
Lord of love, comfort us! Lord of hope, surround us with your protection! Lord of the church, preserve the people we love with faith in Jesus, even when they have turned away from us. Even if it means that they will remain distant from us in this life, let them never really depart from you. Preserve them from the devil’s hate and lies, and bring them safely to you in heaven. Lord Jesus, help us. Bless us. Comfort us.
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 3:1 The rod of fury