GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
LAMENTATIONS 4:7-8
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7 Their princes were brighter than snow
and whiter than milk,
their bodies more ruddy than rubies,
their appearance like sapphires.
8 But now they have become dark and black;
they are not recognized in the streets.
Their skin has shriveled on their bones;
it has become as dry as a stick.
Christians should not waste any time wondering whether this or any other passage in the Bible is about race, or the difference between the races of mankind. Concerns about race are stupid, bigoted, and meaningless. The prophet has been showing how the glory of Judah has been diminished. Now he turns to the princes of Judah. Once good-looking, with white or ruddy skin, they were men who shone like gemstones. But now they have become blackened and dark with hard labor and punishment. The words here are like the complaint of the bride in the Song of Solomon: “Do not stare at me because I am dark, for the sun caught sight of me. My mother’s sons were angry with me! They made me take care of the vineyards, so I could not take care of my own vineyard” (Song 1:6). But while the bride was not really unlovely on account of her labor, these sons of Judah have been brutally abused. They are unrecognizable. They are gaunt, with dry and shriveled skin.
Verse 8 especially foresees Christ’s passion in the phrase, “not recognized in the streets.” David foresaw, “I endure scorn for your sake, and shame covers my face. I am a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my own mother’s sons, for zeal for your house consumes me, and the insults of those who insult you fall on me” (Psalm 69:7-9).
Christ is the embodiment of the princes of Judah. He is the greatest of the Princes of Judah. Even though he was born in a village that was small among the clans of Judah, out of that town of Bethlehem came “a ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times” (Micah 5:2). He is the Lion of the tribe of Judah (Revelation 5:5), and he showed his worth by giving his life for Judah, and not only for Judah, but for the sins of the world. A true ruler, a true king, does not terrorize his sheep, but lays his life down for them, for their good and for their preservation. He saves them (John 10:15).
The body of Christ was darkened, not by the beating sun (for the sun went dark at midday when he was dying, and remained dark until his death), but by the bleeding of his flesh. He skin was barely recognizable to his own mother and the other women who had followed him for years, not on account of hard labor in the fields or the vineyards like the blushing bride in the Song of Solomon, but on account of the welts, bruises, cuts and bleeding wounds that obscured everything familiar about his face and body. He was a bloody mess, abused and mistreated and, after just a few hours on the cross, unable to live any longer, so that a professional soldier and judge like Pilate was surprised to hear that he was already dead when Joseph asked permission to bury him before evening fell (Mark 15:44).
Under the third cross, the crosses that Christians must pick up and carry to follow after our dear Savior, we will sometimes become bruised, our flesh darkened or bleeding on account of the torments of Satan and the very thorns and thistles that Adam’s sin brought into the world (Genesis 3:18) or the many pains of women brought on by Eve’s sin (Genesis 3:16). People who once thought they knew us will not recognize us– but by the grace of God, this will more often be on account of our faith showing than on account of the Devil’s blows. For people who knew us in a moment of sinful weakness may think that the sinner is all there is to their friend, when in fact we are washed, we are sanctified, and we are justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God (1 Corinthians 6:11). Martin Luther was describing what makes a true and genuine saint when he said to his classroom students, “I have seen not one saint but many, in fact, innumerable genuine saints… The kind Christ and the apostles portray and describe. The kind to which, by the grace of God, even I belong. For I have been baptized, and I believe that Christ, my Lord, has redeemed me from sin by his death and has granted me eternal righteousness and holiness” (LW 27:83).
We do not groan under our crosses simply because they are crosses. Sometimes there will be pain from them. God foresaw that when he described it all in Eden to our fallen grandparents. But we carry such things because we are saints, because he follow him, because they will always come to those who put their faith in him. The very presence of the crosses we carry is evidence of our faith in Jesus. We would not be the Devil’s targets without that faith. Foolish old fallen angel, he and his scorched feathers unwittingly uncover the gospel by the very act of trying to steal it away from us. When Jesus stumbled under his cross, the Romans forced a man to help him carry it. Now, trust in Jesus as he helps you carry yours.
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 4:7-8 evidence of our faith