A Desperate longing

All right, change gears, let's jump into Lamentations 5.

And it is a significant change of gears.

I remember this week particularly well.

It was 2003.

A few weeks earlier, from this particular day,

a young couple at church had given birth to their first child, a girl.

And this child, they were told, had a heart problem.

It was a significant heart problem that the doctors said

they were not able to resolve and the child would die.

It was a very emotional time.

Very emotional time.

On the day that she died,

I walked into a hospital waiting room at Westmead Hospital

to support another young couple

whose doctors were about to update them

on the well-being of their first child.

It was a couple who I had married a few years earlier.

They were not Christians.

This little child was also born with a heart condition.

And at six months of age,

they decided to do surgery, to rectify it.

They said it would be a pretty straightforward procedure.

It went wrong.

It went horribly wrong.

And I sat with this couple as this significant medical team

told them that they were doing all that they could,

but their little boy at this stage had a 50-50 chance of survival.

In that moment of an outpouring of grief,

the mum turned to me and asked me two things.

Steve, why is God doing this to us?

And secondly, can you pray for us right now?

The surgeon agreed that was a good idea.

Any help would be appreciated in this moment.

And if prayers are comfort for you, then let's do that.

And they all bowed their heads.

On the way home from the hospital,

I cried out to God in that moment from deep anguish.

So much so I had to, in fact, pull the car over

to the side of the road

because the windscreen wipers weren't removing the water

that was in front of me.

It was just my tears made everything blurry.

I sat on the side of the road and I sobbed

and I pleaded with God.

I pleaded with him to save a life.

It was not just a simple matter of sorrow.

It was just desperation.

God intervened.

God intervened.

God intervened.

Lamentations is a book

that gets us ready for moments like that.

When the phone rings

and you receive the worst possible news

you could receive.

That's what Lamentations does for us.

As one person,

I heard them say in a moment of terrible hardship

as their loved one was dying slowly,

someone with deep Christian faith,

they said,

you've got to have the roof up

if you want shelter in the storm.

No good trying to put it up in the storm.

You've got to have it up

if you want shelter in the storm.

And Lamentations puts the roof on

before the storm hits.

Gets us ready for those storms of life.

In a world that is as broken as our world is,

ravaged by sin as our world is,

we are frankly naive

if we do not make preparation for loss,

for heartbreak, for tragedy.

It's the case of when,

not if.

So if you've just tuned in to us

at St. Paul's here for the first time,

we've been journeying through this topic of lament.

Lament is how we bring our sorrow to God.

And we've been discovering a whole heap about lament

and in this book of Lamentations.

It's a collection of five poems of lament

by the prophet Jeremiah.

And we're up to the fifth lament.

The whole chapter, in fact,

is a prayer.

And there are three main elements to this prayer.

This prayer is broken into three main elements.

It's got three structures.

And each of these elements is, if you like,

a, let's just take the analogy of the roof thing.

Each of these three main elements

are three support beams

that hold the roof up

for when the storm hits.

The first one, if you go to your St. Paul's app,

you'll see the three-point outline there.

It's just three beams.

The first support beam

is a biblical understanding of sin

and its consequences for everything in this world.

It touches everything.

Sin ruins everything.

Now, Lamentations is written in response

to the devastating siege and destruction of Jerusalem

by the Babylonian Empire in 587 BC.

And we know from earlier bits of Lamentations

that this is a deserved suffering.

God has judged his people

for generation after generation of rebellion.

They spurned God's love.

They rejected his word.

They persecuted his prophets.

And chapter five, as we launch into that,

it's the aftermath of the destruction.

It's like the tornado has gone through

and we are now sitting in the rubble.

This is the weeks and the months that followed,

the siege, the destruction,

the deportation of the elite to Babylon.

And so chapter five is a prayer

from the top of the rubble of Jerusalem.

Jeremiah sits there

as the jackals surround and feed on the human corpses.

It's a moment where the atrocities continue.

There's no UN peacekeeping force here.

So this chapter is intensely human.

These chapters are so much more,

sorry, they are as much about the experience of suffering

as they are about the cause of the suffering.

And so what you see right through Lamentations

is this struggle between the head and the heart

or the theological acceptance of it

and the moral outrage of it at the same time.

It's this emotions and logic going together

all the way through Lamentations.

That's chapter five.

In other words, if we go through Lamentations

and don't feel anything,

we've missed it.

Go back and read it again.

Verse one is a simple plea for Yahweh,

their covenant making God to,

their promise keeping God to simply look and see.

Do not turn your face away.

Look at our disgrace.

Now this is simply more than asking God not to forget.

This is a plea for him to intervene

based on his love and his promises.

And the beginning of chapter two

is a, if you like, not so subtle reminder

to God of his promises.

And it's just there in the word inheritance.

You see, an inheritance is,

it's a gift.

It's not earned.

The land, the city, the temple,

it was all a gift from God.

All that Israel had,

all that they were was God's gift to them.

That's how they came to be here in the first place,

because of God's gift.

It wasn't because they were lovely

that God loved them

and made him his special people.

There was nothing lovely about them,

nothing special about them in the beginning.

And there's nothing lovely about them now.

God had made them his people.

He loved the unlovely.

He loved the small, the weak, the insignificant.

God made them something.

He gave them this inheritance.

And so Jeremiah calls,

with the people left in the rubble,

calls on God not to turn away,

but to look and see your inheritance.

Look at the devastation that lingers on.

And as you go through the first section,

you just see the somber residing of Jerusalem's degradation,

their occupation, abandonment, bereavement, thirst,

their poverty, the inflation, the invasion,

the famine, the despondency, the slavery,

the exposure, the rape, the humiliation, the exhaustion.

Why does this happen?

Verse 7,

Our ancestors sinned and are no more,

and we bear their punishment.

God had given them good gifts.

He had given them an inheritance.

He had saved them.

And yet generation after generation,

they had spurned his goodness.

They had ignored his word.

And so God's judgment came upon his people

for their constant rejection.

But the current generation are not innocent, though.

It's not like they go,

well, you know, we're suffering because of those guys.

Verse 16,

The crown has fallen from our head.

Woe to us,

for we have sinned.

Another way of stating that is,

if only we had never sinned.

They'd taken responsibility.

Sin was the reason Jerusalem had fallen.

God's people had rejected their God again and again.

But this current generation had done it too.

You see,

Jeremiah's prophecy of this destruction of Jerusalem

could not have been any clearer.

Jeremiah 19 lays out the details of the destruction of Jerusalem

because of the sin and the idolatry of the people.

And what happens to Jeremiah as he comes in,

brings the word of God to the people of Judah in these days,

for like four decades leading up to this moment,

what happens?

They beat him.

They put him into prison.

Later,

he's thrown into a sewer.

With the expectation,

he will die.

The people of Jerusalem had turned their backs on God's word

and his prophets again and again.

They arrogantly and tragically forgot.

Everything that they had was a good gift from God.

Everything.

Everything.

Everything.

Everything.

Everything.

Everything.

Everything.

So that's the first beam.

First beam to remember when the storms of life hit,

the Bible makes it absolutely clear that none of us are innocent.

None of us.

Romans 3 tells us that all have gone our own way.

All of us have rejected God.

We have all sinned.

And everything wrong in this world is connected to that.

None of us are innocent.

God created a good world.

He designed humanity to live in obedience to him

and discover joy and freedom forever.

And when the first people rebelled against God,

it broke everything.

Everything wrong in this world is a consequence of sin,

either directly or indirectly.

And so the first beam is crucial here.

A Christian therefore echoes the words of the tax collector in Luke 18,

Luke 18:13

verse 13,

who beats his chest and says,

Lord, have mercy on me,

the sinner,

the model sinner.

The Christian echoes the Lord's prayer from the heart.

Forgive me my sin

as I forgive the sins of others.

The Christian sees their sin,

however much they have been sinned against.

It's so important to have a healthy theology of sin.

And what generations of rebellion against God has done to this world.

If we do not,

we tend to put our head in a bucket of sand,

declare that we are basically good,

and that God owes me a trouble-free life.

That's naivety.

God owes us nothing.

It is secular humanism that says,

my life should be upward and advancing,

and everything works for my good.

If Lockie and Rosie go into next Saturday,

make promises to one another,

and just say,

in the good and the bad,

or leave out the bad,

just the good,

take everything negative out,

they will not have the resources to endure in marriage.

Every sorrow,

every tear,

all pain,

every loss,

gives evidence

of the brokenness in our world

caused by sin.

Something is terribly wrong with our world,

every culture,

and inside of every single one of us.

And it's crucial that we understand

that God does not owe us an inheritance.

He does not owe us a trouble-freed life.

Secondly,

however,

what's amazing here,

after acknowledging sin

and recounting 18 verses

of consequences of sin,

verse 18 starts with the word,

not in the NIV,

but it starts with the word,

but,

but,

you've got to love the word,

but,

and this,

verse 19 is in fact the center point

of this whole chapter.

And it's the second support beam

of the roof of our lives

when the storms of life hit.

It's verse 19,

you,

Lord,

or,

but you,

Lord,

reign forever.

your throne endures

from generation to generation.

God is in control.

Sin and its consequences

are not the end of the story.

That's the big but.

Everything in this chapter,

in this book,

circles around verse 19.

This is the spiritual reorientation for Judah.

You see,

God's stern discipline of Judah

has awakened in them

a sense of their sinfulness

and their worthlessness

and their helplessness.

It has broken her pride

and humbled her.

It is very,

you know,

it makes sense

that they should be humbled.

They're sitting on the rubble

of Jerusalem.

And yet for sometimes,

it's not so easy for us to go there.

Our lives can be a rumble.

And yet we still wave the fist to God.

Someone owes me.

Sometimes suffering

drives us further into pride.

Self-assurance,

self-confidence.

But here it's humbledom.

And it's only from this humble position

that Judah invokes God's compassion

and his grace.

Jeremiah confesses

that everything works

according to the decree

and the purpose of the creator.

Every event in life

moves towards the fulfillment

of his plans,

the plans that he ordains,

including the destruction

of Jerusalem under his judgment.

The covenant God,

in his sovereign rule,

has destroyed his city,

his temple,

his people

through the conquest

of his Babylonians.

Babylon,

the most powerful empire

in the world,

was simply doing his bidding.

Now we get the same thinking

if you fast forward

to Acts chapter 4

Acts 4 · chapter mention

where we are told

the sin of Pilate,

the sin of the Roman soldiers,

the sin of the chief priests,

and the sin of the people

conspired together

to crucify Jesus.

And then we are told

in Acts 4 verse 28,

Acts 4:28

they did what your power

and will

had decided beforehand

should happen.

Now they're responsible

for their sin.

It's a terrible thing

for which God

will hold them accountable,

but they cannot stop

God being God.

Just think about that

for a moment.

You must be

very,

very,

very powerful

to have your enemies

fulfill your plans

while working against you.

That's incomprehensible

to me.

I had to even think

about that sentence

several times.

And yet this is how

the Bible tells us

to think about God

and his sovereign rule

over all things.

All else may change

and will change,

but God does not.

God's rule

over all things

as opposed

to what

we might call

chance

or fate

or luck

in our society.

Everything

may fluctuate,

our times

and our circumstances

may grow harder

and more difficult,

but God is in control

of the situation.

The presence

of pain,

no matter

how strong,

does not negate

the plan of God.

No matter

how much it seems

that the world

is collecting around us,

God is on his throne

and he is always

fulfilling his plans.

Now it is essential

that we do not

stop there

with just

those two beams.

If we do,

what happens

is

we slip

into a

nothing more

than a fatalism.

In actual fact,

what we do

is we slip

into the theology

of Islam

if we just

stop there?

It's the will

of Allah.

Nothing you

can do about it.

We are just

mere pawns

in his plans.

What's the difference

between,

amongst many

other things,

between Islam

and Christianity?

Beam number

three.

Beam number

three.

relationship.

God

is

good.

He's beam

number

three.

God

comes to us

in our

suffering.

He's not

Aristotle's

unmoved

mover

at a distance.

He comes

to us

in our

suffering

and that's

why

Lamentations

doesn't end

with verse

19.

If it did,

the application

would be

very trite

for us.

It would

be nothing

more than,

well,

always look

on the

bright side

of life.

Nothing

more than

that.

Or,

there's always

a silver

lining,

you just

got to

look for

it,

or,

you will

rise like

a phoenix

from the

ashes.

The Christian

hope is not

just that God

is in control,

but that he's

good.

fundamental

third

being,

he is

good.

And so

in verse

20,

we are

back into

the darkness

and the

death.

Why do

you always

forget us?

Why do

you forsake

us so

long?

And here

we have

a plea

to God's

goodness,

which echoes

verse 1,

and it ends

in the same

kind of way.

restore us

to yourself,

Lord,

that we

may return,

renew our

days as

of old,

unless you

have utterly

rejected us

and are

angry with

us beyond

measure.

One

commentator

says that

lamentation

ends like

it does

because

Jeremiah and

Jerusalem

are in a

position akin

to the

disciples on

Easter

Saturday.

The hope

of the

resurrection

Easter day

is yet

to dawn

for them.

There is

waiting,

longing

for hope

to dawn.

And while

we wait,

we need to

hold both

the sovereignty

of God

and the

goodness of

God in

equal measure.

The plea

in verses

20 and

21 is

simply,

God,

this hurts,

help us.

But the

main words

there are

restore,

return,

renew.

Verse 21,

restore us

to yourself,

O Lord.

This is not

simply asking

God to

change the

situation.

It is,

in fact,

an appeal

for

forgiveness

and a

restored

relationship.

This is

crucial.

my fear

is that

for so

many of

us,

we repent

because we

want to

get a

weight off

our

shoulders.

We want

to feel

better about

ourselves.

And so

when we

do that,

we constantly

live with

an underlying

feeling of

shame and

am I truly

forgiven?

we don't

sense the

freedom of

forgiveness.

What's the

purpose?

In other

words,

when we do

that,

it's

self-orientated.

Our

repentance

is self-orientated.

Repentance

and forgiveness

matters because

of the

next step.

it's

because it

restores

relationship.

That's why

repentance

matters.

If I

wronged my

wife,

Nat,

it causes,

sorry,

when I

wronged my

wife,

Nat,

it causes

a strain,

it causes

a separation,

a break

in the

relationship.

There's

this

barrier,

there's

this

problem

and

depending

on how

much I

wronged

her will

depend on

how great

that barrier

is,

that roadblock

in our

relationship

will be.

Repentance

and forgiveness

matters,

not so that I

feel better

about myself,

it's because I

get Nat

back.

That's why

it matters.

I want

restored

relationship.

And as

they sit

on the

rubble of

Jerusalem,

their suffering

has led

them to

want God

back.

Even if

the rubble

remains,

we want

God back.

This is

more than

just a

prayer of

lament,

it is a

prayer of

repentance,

it's a

prayer for

renewal,

renewed

relationship.

It's

prayer for

restoration,

renewal at

the end

of

lamentations

points us

to something

that only

God can

do.

And yet

for

lamentations,

this is

where it

ends.

This

historic

lament

concludes

without

resolution.

resolution.

As

some of

us feel

like life

is a

bit like

that at

the

moment,

particularly

in the

moment of

suffering when

the storms

hit,

it feels

like it

just

lingers.

It

ends by

telling us

where to

look in

pain,

but not

giving us the

rest of the

story.

And it

will be

over 400

years before

the resolution

comes.

Just think

about that

for Judah

for this

moment.

There was a

gap of 400

years before

God spoke

again.

We want you

back.

And it

was 400

years before

he spoke

again.

We don't

have that

long now.

At the

beginning of

Matthew's

account of

Jesus'

life,

Joseph is

told that

Mary will

give birth

to a

son.

You give

him the

name Jesus

because he

will save

his people

from their

sins.

First

words.

Jesus is

the one

who restores

us to

God by

taking

God's

punishment

for us.

Just

before his

execution and

his arrest

and his

execution,

Jesus is

in the

garden of

Gethsemane

and he

says this,

identifying

with our

sorrow,

he says,

my soul

is overwhelmed

with sorrow

to the point

of death.

Mark 14

tells us

he was

deeply

distressed

and he

was troubled.

We must

not

minimize

what

Jesus

went

through

on

our

behalf.

If you

have a

very high

view of

Jesus,

we sort

of tend

to think,

well,

he could

cope,

he's God

after all,

he's divine,

he can kind

of cope with it,

he knows what's

going to happen,

he knows the

plan,

but the fact

is it says

here Jesus

is deeply

distressed,

which for him

felt exactly

what it feels

like for you

and for me,

he is

deeply

distressed.

in fact,

more so,

the anguish

that he

bore was

greater than

any anguish

we would

ever face,

any sorrow

that we

would ever

encounter.

He saw

the full

terror of

what lay

ahead,

his prostate

body convulsing

in the Garden

of Gethsemane

and his tears

and the sweat

falling to the

ground like

blood.

The terror

he felt

was not so

much because

of the pain

of the cross

that he was

about to

endure,

but because

of the

human sin

and all

of its

consequences,

the cup

of God's

judgment

being poured

out,

the destroyed

Jerusalem

is about

to destroy

him and

wreck the

Godhead

apart

in such a

way that

the Father

turns his

face away.

He saw

the brutality

of a thousand

holocausts,

all the

prostituting

and idolatry

of human

civilizations,

the blasphemy,

the profanity,

and it was

the cup

that was

full to

the brim

of jealousy

and hatred

and bitterness

and gossip

and greed

and anger,

and it was

his job

to drink

all of

God's

judgment.

He doesn't

want to do

it.

The storm

had hit,

but oh man,

the shelter

was up.

He falls

to the ground

and he

pleads,

if possible,

that this

hour might

pass,

but

not my

will,

but your

will be

done.

Your plan

goes forward,

not mine.

He soaks up

the punishment

of the world.

The greatest

display of

obedience to

the plan

of God,

Jesus took

the cup,

the full

cup of

human sin

and God's

judgment.

he looked

at it

shuddering

deep into

its depth

and in a

stilly act

of trust

and dependence

upon his

good father.

He drank

it all

for you

and for me

so that we

do not

end up

where Jeremiah

is at the

end of

Lamentations

5.

1 Peter 3

tells us

Christ

suffered

once for

all sin

for the

righteous,

the righteous

one for the

unrighteous

one to

bring you

back to

God.

You get

God back.

And so

Jesus,

the cross,

is the

resolution to

the plea in

Lamentations

5.21 and

22.

He's the

one who

brings us

back to

God.

None of

our suffering

makes any

sense.

In fact,

no suffering

in this

world,

whatever your

religion and

philosophical

system is,

makes no

sense

until we

see Jesus

suffering for

us.

God

himself

suffering for

us.

There isn't a

religion or

philosophical

system in

this world

that has any

answer to

human suffering

like the

Christian faith.

And so

we lament.

Because all

the promises

of God

are not

yet

fulfilled.

They have

their yes

and their

amen in

Jesus.

So let

me just

take a

slight

diversion

here.

Particularly

for those

of us in

this room

and watching

on screen

who have

walked with

Jesus for

a while.

The

opposite of

walking

with Jesus

in lament

while we

wait for

the

completeness

of his

promises

is a

cynical

spirit.

That's the

opposite of

lament.

And

I see

too much

of it

in my

own

heart

and I

see too

much of

it,

I believe,

amongst

Christians.

cynicism

is

increasingly

the

dominant

spirit

of this

age

and

too

many

Christians

are

marinating

in that

age.

Many

Christians

stand on

the edge

of

cynicism

struggling

with a

defeated

weariness

but

hiding

it

behind

a

theology

of

God's

sovereignty.

As a

pastor,

in moments

of grief,

I often

say to

people,

how are

you doing?

Trusting

in God's

plan.

Trusting

in God's

plan.

He's

sovereign,

he's in

control,

he'll work

it out.

But how

do you

feel about

that?

And

there's

no

response.

That's

cynicism.

That's

weariness,

not

lament.

That's

not

trust.

That is,

their

spirits

have

begun

to

deaden

but

unlike

their

cynic,

they

haven't

lost

all of

hope.

There's

still a

hope

there.

But the

fear of

further

sorrows

tends to

freeze

them.

Cynicism

and defeated

weariness both

question the

active

goodness of

God,

which is

why we

can't stop

at being

number

two.

Being

number

three is

the

difference

between

lament

and

cynicism.

Cynicism

creates a

numbness

towards

God

and

life,

a

deafening

silence

of

prayerlessness

about

your

heart

and

what's

going

on

in

this

world.

It

may

maintain

a

rigorous

theology

of

God's

sovereignty

while

not

actually

relating

to

him.

prayers

of

lament

engage

with

evil.

They

don't

take no

for an

answer.

Jeremiah

is in

God's

faith

as he

lays

bare

his

heart

hoping

dreaming

asking.

Lament

is not

wallowing.

Lament

is

feisty.

Cynicism

just

critiques

and

languishes

and

wallows.

That's

cynicism.

Cynicism

is

passive.

It is

without

hope in

this

life.

Only

hope for

life

forever.

That

is

the

sorrow

of

life

leads

us

to

the

man

of

sorrows.

The

man

of

sorrows.

The

God

who

knows

your

sorrow.

Under

the

dark

clouds

of

brokenness

God

offers

mercy.

I

sat

this

week

with a

ministry

peer

going

through

a

tough

time.

I

said to

him

what

have

you

learned

in

this

moment.

What's

God

teaching

you?

He

started

to

tear

up

and

he

said

I

just

hear

God

saying

to

me

all

the

time

walk

with

me.

Walk

with

me.

Walk

with

me.

God

the

man

of

sorrows

offers

the

embrace.

Lament

is the

language

of

a

people

who

know

the

whole

story.

Not

just

part

of

it.

The

gospel

story.

The

Christian's

view of

pain

and

suffering

in

this

present

life

is

transformed

because

of the

good

news

of the

man

of

sorrows.

For

I

consider

that

the

sufferings

of

this

present

time

are

not

worth

comparing

with

the

glory

that

is

to

be

revealed

to

us.

And

so

we

along

with

all

creation

groan

as

we

wait

for

the

future

day

when

Christ's

victory

will

be

complete.

We

lament.

We

embrace

this

language

of

sorrow

as

a

road

map

to

God's

grace

and

getting

God

back.

You

can hear

God

call out

to you

at the

moment

if that's

your

position

in life.

walk

with

me.

Walk

with

me.

Let's

pray.

Gracious

Father and

Lord of

all,

sin has

ravaged

your

good

world.

Living

in a

sin riddled

world means

we

accumulate

pain

and

sorrow

and hurt.

Much

of that

is stored

deep in

our

hearts.

We

have

been

touched

by

sin

and

pain

so

many

times

and

in

so

many

ways

it's

hard

to

remember

it

all

but

some

of

those

times

they

are

just

seared

into

our

memories.

We

battle

with

cynicism.

For

some of

us

cynicism

has

crept

in

and

made

us

passive

with

you.

So

we

have

this

trust

in

a

theological

system

rather

than

walking

with

you.

It

is

passive

with

you.

And

so we

ask for

your help

Holy

Spirit

to look

again

at those

sufferings

and discern

your love

for us

in that

very

pain.

Give

us

wisdom

and

discernment

if not

to fully

understand

your ways

but to

trust

your plans

your power

your goodness

the goodness

that saw

you intervene

for us

Jesus.

Father

teach us

to trust

and to

live as

people

who know

that our

final hope

cannot be

in any

earthly

Jerusalem

or in

any

earthly

circumstances

just getting

better

but only

in you.

So grow

our faith

in you

in the face

of adversity

and pain.

Thank you

for the gift

of lament.

Amen.

Horatio

Spafford

was a

prominent

American

lawyer

and

Presbyterian

church

elder

back in

the 1800s.

He knew

suffering

and loss

in his

life

in all

kinds

of

ways.

Certainly

not the

least

that

scarlet

fever

killed

his

four

year

old

son

in the

same

year

that

his

business

was

destroyed

by

fire

in

Chicago.

Two

years

later

the

family

decided

to

take

a

holiday

to

Europe

as

part

of

a

respite

and

rebuilding

opportunity

for

them.

Horatio

was

delayed

because

business

at the

last

minute

he was

delayed

and so

his wife

and his

four

daughters

travelled

on ahead

of him

across

the

Atlantic

on a

ship.

On

the

22nd

of

November

1873

while

crossing

the

Atlantic

their

ship

was

hit

by

an

iron

sailing

vessel

226

people

lost

their

lives

including

four

of

Spafford's

daughters

all of

them

all these

kids

gone

now.

He

got the

news

when his

wife

touched

down

in

England.

Spafford

immediately

sailed

to

England

and

as

he

sailed

over

the

location

of

his

daughter's

death

he