GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
LAMENTATIONS 3:41-42
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41 Let us lift up our hearts and hands to God in heaven:
42 We sinned and we rebelled,
and you have not forgiven.
This is the beginning of a prayer. Lifting up one’s hands was a frequently used posture for prayer in Bible times (1 Kings 8:22; Psalm 28:2; 63:4; Lamentations 2:19; 1 Timothy 2:8). Lifting up the heart to God is the main thing in prayer; what we do with our hands is not required, either this way or that. We teach our children to fold their hands, but this isn’t said in the Bible (at least not of prayer), and I suspect that we teach children to do this so that they will stop fidgeting and doing other things and think about the words that are being said. When I lead worship, I do not always fold my hands, but often hold the prayer book, or move my finger along the side of the column where the prayer is printed to keep my place, or leave my hands at my sides. But I am praying, nevertheless. Our eyes, too, could be open or closed, and one can pray while walking or even running. Kneeling is only a good posture for those who can do it. My grandma Rose stopped kneeling when arthritis got the better of her legs and knees, and now it’s catching up with me, too.
There is one more important thing to be said about prayer. It can be done in silence, and if we are confessing sins to God, this is probably a good thing. Satan can’t hear, read, or listen in on our thoughts, although he can hear us when we talk out loud. If we confess a sin, we don’t need to give him any more ammunition to torment us about in the future. So that can be, and probably should be, silent. But when we praise Jesus Christ and pray petitions about our lives, our needs, and the people we love, we can and should speak that part of the prayer out loud. The devil hates the name of Jesus and runs away from it, so don’t be afraid to finish your prayer with a good loud, “In Jesus’ name, Amen.” Then be at peace.
In the first sentence of this prayer, the prophet admits and confesses his guilt on behalf of the nation. We are surprised to hear him say, “you have not forgiven,” but the people were yearning, hoping, for a reversal of their fortunes. Remember that under the first cross they were exiled many long miles away from home, up and down the banks of the rivers of Babylon (Psalm 137:1). They were thinking that to be forgiven would mean to be permitted to go home.
As we ponder the second cross, the cross of Jesus our Lord, the words are not quite the same, but when we fit them to the Savior’s circumstance, they only become more tragic, more heartbreaking, more horrific: “They sinned, I did not. They rebelled, I did not. But you have not forgiven me.” His punishment, suffering, and torture would not end until he was dead. The wages of sin is death, and he came into the world to receive those wages, to accept the punishment, to be killed for mankind.
But with everything he said and did on that cross, he was constantly lifting up his heart to his Father in prayer. There was nothing he said that was disparaging, grumbling, spiteful, or sinful. Even the fifth Word from the cross, “I am thirsty,” was only a reflection of the frailty of his humiliation and the nearness of his death– it was not a complaint. And it might go without saying, but let it be said: Everything he said and did on that cross he did with hands lifted up to God in heaven. Even as he died.
We have become his followers, his dear brothers and sisters. But isn’t it a shock for us to learn that we must pick up crosses, each for ourselves, and carry them? This is not something we do voluntarily, but he would have us do it willingly. This is not something we do to atone for sin, or to pay a penalty or a price, but to suffer. The cross, the third cross, the Christian’s pick it up and follow him every day cross, is a necessary consequence of being his disciple. Period. In his book The Theology of the Cross, Professor Daniel Deutschlander exclaims: “No cross, no Christian! It is the cross that marks the Christian as a Christian. Those who are ashamed of the cross in this life, both his and their own, will see the Son of God ashamed of them at the last judgment. Could there be a more horrible prospect than that? Could there be a more pummeling hammer against our sinful flesh? The flesh wants to hear nothing of the cross and certainly does not want to carry one” (p. 3). The cross and the heavy, hard work of bearing it day upon day until it is exchanged for some other cross brings to mind the ringing “Anvil Chorus” in one of Wagner’s operas: hammers and anvils, and no other “music” than that; it is a painful, enduring, bitterly memorable sound. And so the cross is a painful, enduring, and bitterly memorable burden.
This is why we confess our sins week upon week. This is why we remain constant in prayer, day after day. This is why we drink deeply of the Holy Scriptures and that fountain of God’s grace and mercy. The Law so clearly shows us our sins. The Gospel so beautifully shows us our Savior. We keep our eyes fixed on him, and keep our hearts lifted up to God in heaven, and bear the burden. In love. In forgiveness.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Archives at St Paul’s Lutheran Church https://splnewulm.org/daily-devotions/ and Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel: www.wlchapel.org/connect-grow/ministries/adults/daily-devotions/gwfy-archive/2025
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – Lamentations 3:41-42 Hearts and hands to God