GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
LAMENTATIONS 4:15-16
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15 Men shout at them: “Go away! You are unclean!”
“Away! Away! Don’t touch us!”
When they fled and staggered off,
people among the nations said, “They can’t stay here any longer.”
16 The LORD himself scattered them;
he no longer watches over them.
The priests were shown no honor, the elders no favor.
These verses continue the judgment on the wicked prophets and priests who were condemned after they oppressed, wounded and even killed true prophets and priests of the Lord. Their punishment was to be called out as unclean by those who were exiled with them; they had egged on God’s people and were the reason that the people fell away from God in such large numbers. They were led astray by these so-called holy men, and now the people were at last recognizing them for what they were: false teachers and false prophets.
When Luther looked for the simplest way to explain the Third Commandment, he seems to have taken his cue from two or three different places: Psalm 138:2: “you have exalted above all things your name and your word,” 1 Corinthians 11:22: “Do you despise the church of God?”, and Deuteronomy 4:10, “Assemble the people before me to hear my words so that they may learn to revere me as long as they live in the land and may teach them to their children.” He distilled these and other passages to this: “We should fear and love God that we do not despise preaching and his Word, but regard it as holy and gladly hear and learn it.” What Israel’s false prophets and priests had done was surely to despise preaching and the word of God.
More than this, our author says about those false prophets and priests: “The LORD himself scattered them; he no longer watches over them.” God had made special arrangements to watch over his priests under the Law of Moses. “I give to the Levites all the tithes in Israel as their inheritance in return for the work they do while serving at the Tent of Meeting” (Numbers 18:21). But at the same time, there was a warning. There was a special standard to be kept up by the priests (who were Levites) and anyone who spoke the word of the Lord (that is, the prophets). God said: “Take this Book of the Law and place it beside the Ark of the Covenant of the LORD your God, and let it remain there as a witness against you” (Deuteronomy 31:26). They were to be held accountable to the Word of the Law. Moses recognized how rebellious they had been while he was alive, so how much more rebellious they would become after his death! Therefore, the Law was there for everyone to read and to judge: Were the people and their priests living up to God’s will according to God’s holy law? “They have not feared me” God judged, “or walked in my law or in my statutes that I set before your fathers… I will certainly set my face against you to bring disaster, to cut off all of Judah” (Jeremiah 44:10-11). Therefore the Lord scattered them, dividing them from one another and from the people, to minimize the damage they could still do while still extending the time of grace for the offenders, and to show his judgment on their messages.
For those few priests and false prophets who repented of their sin, their continued judgment by the people would remain as their cross during the long years of the exile.
We are also able to study these verses to behold the second cross, the cross of our Savior Jesus. The shouts of the people, “Go away! You are unclean! Away! Away! Don’t touch us!” were surely echoed in some way by the crowds that hurled abuses at our Lord as he went to pay for the sins of those false priests. Both Jews and Gentiles conspired to say to the Creator of the Universe, “You can’t stay here any longer” (verse 15). He was the one who altered his holy and perfect existence in eternity to make room for all of mankind, mankind that so soon fell into sin. But he did not wipe them out to begin again. He allowed their existence to continue, with the express purpose of bringing you, personally, into the world, so that, as Paul said to the Greeks, you “might seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him” (Acts 17:27). The second cross atoned for sin in order that the lost sheep of Christ would be found and brought to faith in him, so that the devil would not have succeeded in destroying everything that the Lord had planned from the beginning.
There is also an echo here of the third cross, the cross that we carry and endure. “No honor… no favor.” While this was heaped on the false teachers and priests in the exile, it often falls on the faithful now as time winds down to its close, and things grow increasingly worse and more difficult. We bear up under these things out of love.
Is bearing a cross to be considered a good work? Since it is possible to bear up under a cross through faith in Christ, it naturally and inevitably follows that carrying a cross is a good work. Our Lutheran Confessions make this point: “The proclamation of the Gospel, faith, prayer, thanksgiving, confession, the afflictions (crosses) of the saints, yes, all the good works of the saints… are not satisfactions on behalf of those who bring them, nor can they merit the forgiveness of sins or reconciliation for others, for those who bring them are already reconciled” (Apology of the Augsburg Confession XXIV:25). Our crosses are a form of worship and praise to God for what he has done for us. “Let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise– the fruit of lips that confess his name” (Hebrews 13:15). And it is not only our lips that confess his name, but our limbs, our aching joints and knees, our grieving hearts, our troubled hearts and lives, and all of the many ways that crosses afflict us. These are a daily offering of faith and praise. Praise God, from whom all blessings flow.
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 4:15-16 a daily offering