GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
LAMENTATIONS 3:59-60
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59 You have seen how I was wronged, O LORD.
Judge my case.
60 You saw all their vindictiveness,
all their plots against me.
The first cross we consider when reading Lamentations is the cross of the book’s context, the suffering of the Jews in the Babylonian exile. The strange thing here is that the speaker, our prophet or poet, complains that on top of being chastised by God to be led to repentance, his people have also been wronged. It would be difficult, almost impossible, for the average writer or believer to judge whether this was the case. However, here, the writer is writing under the divine guidance of the Holy Spirit. He is not just a writer, but a divinely inspired writer, and therefore we must take his words at face value and understand them in their context.
There are certainly examples, but we will make due with two famous ones. The first is Psalm 137, where we are told that “our captors asked us for songs, our tormentors demanded songs of joy” (Psalm 137:3). They were kicking the Jews when they were down, which is the same treatment Satan gives to all of God’s people. The second example is the treatment of the Jews, and especially Mordecai the Jew, by wicked Haman in the book of Esther. Haman plotted to kill all of the Jews. Haman “scorned the idea of killing only Mordecai. Instead Haman looked for a way to destroy all Mordecai’s people, the Jews, throughout the whole kingdom of Xerxes” (Esther 3:6).
Therefore our prophet asks God to judge his case. It was not the exile itself that he was speaking against. The exile was deserved on account of the people’s sin. But the vindictiveness of the enemies of the Jews was too much to bear. The Jews were not just exiled. They were wronged. They were plotted against. They were tormented. They were conspired against, so that the total extermination of their people in Babylon was on the minds of at least some of the people there.
Let us turn to the second cross, the cross of Jesus our Savior.
Many of the streets of Jerusalem are narrow, including the traditional Via Dolorosa, or “Way of Sorrow,” the traditional zigzagging route through the city that may have been taken by Jesus and the other condemned men on their way out of the city to be crucified. Many of the streets are as narrow as a school hallway, with two or three-story buildings on both sides towering up overhead, mostly made of the relentless yellowish stone that predominates the whole region. Such walls seem oppressive on account of their firmness and height. It is not a place for relaxation. Nothing is soft, nothing calms the senses in the least. Even in the shade the sun is too bright. Everything is hard, gritty, unyielding, and even relentless. The architecture is immovable and permanent. Small balconies jut out overhead with dry wooden lattices that might be whitewashed but that no one would ever mistake for being either new or painted. Or very safe. Whether it was precisely through the streets of the Via Dolorosa or not, the journey of Christ with his cross was through streets very much like those, a street away to the right or to the left. And there would have been mobs of people there for the festival moving past in both directions. One can imagine the orthodox Jews hurrying to get out of the way so as not to come into contact with blood (the trail of blood behind Jesus must have been a long, continuous, gruesome red smear on the yellow-white streets). But other people, Romans, Greeks, and not-so-orthodox Jews, may have given the crosses a kick with angry snarls of “Get out of the way, criminal!” and worse language.
Jesus was condemned even though he was innocent, as Pilate himself announced in public. Jesus was rejected by his own people, the Jews, and especially by their leaders– and even more especially by their religious leaders, the chief priests, the scribes, and the Pharisees. They were vindictive, jealous, hateful, and abusive. They plotted against him from the very beginning of his ministry, even joining with their enemies as long as it meant killing Jesus– his total extermination (Mark 3:6).
“Judge my case,” the prophet says, and it is a prophecy. The faithful, whether Jews or Gentiles, were brought to faith by the Holy Spirit and were saved. Those who rejected him? Destruction came in their lifetime. Just forty years passed after Jesus’ ascension when the Romans fell upon Jerusalem with a new wrath, a new vindictiveness, and left only ruins. It was just as Jesus had foretold:
“As he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “If you, even you, had known in this day…! If you had known what would bring you peace! But now it is hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side. They will tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not recognize the moment of your inspection” (Luke 19:41-44).
We read about this, learn about it, and we are tempted to think, “How could they be so foolish?” Beware, believer! Don’t set down your cross just yet! The sinner’s flesh is attached to the world, and all kinds of attackers set up their warfare, all around. “Error, heresy, and doubt are not merely hindrances to cross bearing; where they triumph, they are themselves a refusal to bear the cross. And we can be sure of this: Just as sin is never content to be alone but always wants the company of more sin and other sinners (Eve proved that already in the Garden of Eden!), so too are error and heresy and doubt.” Errors and sins take their aim at getting the Christian to reject his or her cross in order to get to the rejection of the cross of Christ. The rotten heart of every heresy is the denial of the need for Christ. Even the doubt that spooks around in the mind when Christians get tired or lazy with their faith does this. The simple “innocent” question, “What if we’re wrong about all of this?” is not innocent at all. It’s a sniper shot at your faith with the Devil’s finger on the trigger. “What if God doesn’t exist? What if God isn’t the Creator? Or didn’t send his Son to save me?” Do you see how each and every one of these questions throws everything away? There is no difference between these “innocent” little questions and the offer Satan gave to Jesus on the mountain. Does this sound familiar? “The Devil led him up to a high mountain and in a mere moment showed him all the kingdoms of the world. The Devil told him, “I will give you all this power and the glory of these kingdoms. For it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want. So, if you worship me, it will all be yours” (Luke 4:5-7).
Take up whatever cross you have today– tonight– and bless God for it. Give him glory and praise! Your dear Lord Jesus uses this trouble along with many other troubles to turn us in repentance back to him, to depend on him for everything. Not only a little help hefting a hard hunk of oak, but the burden of our sins, which he took away from us completely. If I complain about an actual splinter in my hand, how would I handle the cross of pain, shame and damnation that should have been mine? Would have been mine! Except that he took it away, and carried it himself through that Way of Sorrow to the Hill of the Skull, the hell of our punishment, and brought us safely home to heaven.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Listen or watch Bible classes online. https://splnewulm.org/invisible-church/
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 3:59-60 The Via Dolorosa