Yesterday’s post about plans for reading Jeremiah should be companioned with an understanding of lamentation, for lamentation is a liquid ribbon of sorrow through out the book.
Lamentation — (Heb. ginah, an elegy or dirge. The first example of this form of poetry is the lament of David over Saul and Jonathan (2 Sam. 1:17–27). It was a frequent accompaniment of mourning (Amos 8:10). In 2 Sam. 3:33, 34 is recorded David’s lament over Abner. Prophecy sometimes took the form of a lament when it predicted calamity (Ezek. 27:2, 32; 28:12; 32:2, 16).[1] The book of Lamentation is usually attributed to Jeremiah.
A Meditation on Lament, . . .
–is the cry of a confused heart.
–is the sorrowful sound of a violin in the hands of a forsaken musician.
–is the anguish of loneliness shouted to a God who seems distant.
–is the final emotional salvo hurled at God before the rising of hope.
–is my heart breaking over the pain of my circumstances and longing for relief.
–is my anguish at experiencing less of God than I want and far more than I deserve.
–is the process whereby God shows me that I have replaced satisfaction in Him with an idol of my own making.
–is my heart being drawn back to my first love by the pain of my present moment.
We need more pastors who will stay in their study and prayer long enough to emerge with a passionate cry of lament in the pulpit for the treachery, violence, rebellion and flagrant wickedness of our age.
© 2022, Marty Schoenleber, Jr.
[1]Easton, M. (1996, c1897). Easton’s Bible Dictionary. Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
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