Lamentations 5 – Holy Saturday

Holy Saturday Reading – Lamentations 5
1 Remember, Lord, what has happened to us; look, and see our disgrace.
2 Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our homes to foreigners.
3 We have become fatherless, our mothers are widows.
4 We must buy the water we drink; our wood can be had only at a price.
5 Those who pursue us are at our heels; we are weary and find no rest.
6 We submitted to Egypt and Assyria to get enough bread.
7 Our ancestors sinned and are no more, and we bear their punishment.
8 Slaves rule over us, and there is no one to free us from their hands.
9 We get our bread at the risk of our lives because of the sword in the desert.
10 Our skin is hot as an oven, feverish from hunger.
11 Women have been violated in Zion, and virgins in the towns of Judah.
12 Princes have been hung up by their hands; elders are shown no respect.
13 Young men toil at the millstones; boys stagger under loads of wood.
14 The elders are gone from the city gate; the young men have stopped their music.
15 Joy is gone from our hearts; our dancing has turned to mourning.
16 The crown has fallen from our head. Woe to us, for we have sinned!
17 Because of this our hearts are faint, because of these things our eyes grow dim
18 for Mount Zion, which lies desolate, with jackals prowling over it.
19 You, Lord, reign forever; your throne endures from generation to generation.
20 Why do you always forget us? Why do you forsake us so long?
21 Restore us to yourself, Lord, that we may return; renew our days as of old
22 unless you have utterly rejected us and are angry with us beyond measure.
Holy Saturday Devotion
Late one night I was driving home from Hilversum when a thick fog settled over the road from the motorway to Ermelo
where we lived at the time. Surrounded by this blanket of white I was unable to see what was ahead. Drawing on my
experience of the road I slowly followed the markers trusting them to guide me. It was a case of sensing and feeling my
way forward.
Life can have those moments – when you can’t see the way forward. For the disciples Holy Saturday was one such
moment. They had seen Jesus arrested and crucified – their hopes and dreams seemed to die with Jesus on that cross.
Scripture is silent on what the disciples did that day. But you imagine the conversations as they perhaps gathered
together trying to make sense of what they had experienced. Where was God in this moment, what of their dreams and
hopes for the kingdom Jesus had shared with them, what was the way forward?
For the author of Lamentations, he and God’s people in exile and in Jerusalem were also in a time when the way ahead
was unknown. The temple and much of Jerusalem had been destroyed and along with it the hopes and dreams many of
God’s people had for the future. Worse still was the apparent silence of God – the author cries out in Lamentations 5.20:
Why do you always forget us? Why do you forsake us so long?
We too experience those moments when there is silence, and the way forward is unclear. Like being in that fog we trust
there is a path even though we might not see it. These moments test and challenge us, stretch and broaden the
boundaries of our faith. It is for moments like these that we are to grow our roots deep into Jesus. Jeremiah,
traditionally considered the author of Lamentations, writes in Jeremiah 17.8 encouraging God’s people to be “like a tree
planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always
green. It has no worries in a year of drought.”
The Apostle Paul encourages us in these moments of silence with these words in 2 Corinthians 4.7-10: But we have this
treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every
side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We
always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.
It is during these silent times, these testing times that our roots can extend further into faith, into trust and into Christ.
Lamentations gives us permission to cry out to God, to express our sadness and pain, our doubts and our confusion to
God. Yet as followers of Jesus we have the treasure of the good news of Jesus and the resurrection hope stored within
us. Though things may be dark and the way unseen we are not without hope because we know that out of death came
life. In the midst of silence, we hold onto this hope and onto the one in whom hope is found.
On this Holy Saturday bring to God your own situations. Cry out to God, even in the face of God’s silence, an audacious
prayer of lament as the author of Lamentations does. Invite God into your situation. May you be encouraged to draw on
the deep roots you have in Jesus to carry you through these times. As you reflect on the death of Jesus and the hope
that is the resurrection may you experience hope, strength and the compassion of God even in the midst of silence.
Father God, in this silence of Holy Saturday we bring to you those things that are heavy on our hearts. Following on the
pattern of Lamentations we call on you to hear our prayers. We ask that in the waiting for the way forward your Spirit
will cause resurrection hope to rise within us because we are confident in your presence, your love and your promises. In
Jesus precious name we pray. Amen.
Hebrews 11.1: Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.