Welcome to our All Saints Holy Week devotionals, April 2023.
Daily, there will be a devotional offered – to read or to listen to – by a member of All Saints. We will be sharing from Lamentations across the week – a chapter or most of a chapter per day…
Words from the opening words of each chapter in Lamentations.
How deserted lies the city, once so full of people!
How like a widow is she,
who once was great among the nations!
She who was queen among the provinces has now become a slave.
How the Lord has covered Daughter Zion with the cloud of his anger![b]
He has hurled down the splendour of Israel from heaven to earth;
he has not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger.
I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of the LORD’s wrath.
2 He has driven me away and made me walk in darkness rather than light;
3 indeed, he has turned his hand against me again and again, all day long.
How the gold has lost its lustre, the fine gold become dull!
The sacred gems are scattered at every street corner.
Remember, LORD, what has happened to us; look, and see our disgrace.
Why Lamentations? 5 Reasons.
First. Lamentations is about the aftermath of the destruction of Jerusalem. The people are taken into exile. There is a loss of monarchy, land, city, temple. All due to Israel’s sin down through many years. It is a book expressing the experiences, the voices of those who suffered. It is a book after destruction but before restoration. It is a book between what seemed to be the end and before resurrection.
The early church saw in this book, a connection with Holy Week and especially Holy Saturday. On Saturday there was the devastation of the cross, and yet Easter had not come.
Secondly it is a book, which reminds us about sin. Jerusalem is destroyed due to sin. Jesus ‘we all, like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him, the iniquity of us all.’’ Sin is serious. God is seriously loving and seriously holy. Sin is serious to God. It is so awesome that we do not need to deal with this problem. As Paul puts it ‘God made him who had no son to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.’’
Third. In the 5 poems, esp in chapter 3, we see and hear many references which can be applied to Jesus. He is deserted by friends
He is mocked by enemies
There is apathy from passers by. He is stripped naked.
He suffered.
Feels abandoned – My God My God.
4th . Language
Often this book is neglected or not really engaged with. Yet to neglect it and other lament writings deprives us the church of the language of lament – as theologian CH Wright says, Lament is ‘’a whole genre and vocabulary given to us by God, it is in the Word for a reason.’’ There is lament on the lips of Jesus on Good Friday ‘ My God my God why have you forsaken me’.
Do we lament? We live in a global village. Our lives may be comfortable and okay. But for many, it is not, injustice, persecution, suffering through war or famine, earthquake, flood. Do we not have a call to ‘weep with those who weep, mourn with those who mourn’? (Romans 12:15). To cry out to God, to lament?
5th. Growth.
To not faithfully read Lamentations, means we miss the challenge of the book and the reward of wrestling with the ‘massive theological issues that permeate its poetry.’’ The Book asks – can our centre hold? Can faith in YHWH – God who is gracious, faithful, loving, merciful and all powerful? Yes, the Book says the centre can hold and it does – right in the central section of the book, we hear Lam 3:21-24
21 Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope:
22 Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.
23 They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
24 I say to myself, ‘The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.’
So this Holy Week, I invite you to set aside a little extra time each day – read or listen to the devotional, use the prayer included, to listen to the song or hymn recommended. And may the Lord use those devotions to help sustain you, if you are weary. Or to give you the words to sustain the weary you know…
Tomorrow – Monday of Holy Week, we focus on Lamentations chapter 1.
Suggested Song – How Long – by Brian Doerksen, based on Psalm 13, a psalm of lament. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsaS1Rf4M74
Can be found on Spotify under the album ‘You Shine’.
A Prayer for today and for this Holy Week…
Thanks be to you, my Lord Jesus Christ,
for all the benefits which you have won for me,
for all the pains and insults you have borne for me. O most merciful Redeemer, Friend and Brother, may I know you more clearly, love you more dearly, and follow you more nearly, day by day. Amen.
VersesfromNew InternationalVersion–UK(NIVUK)Holy Bible, New International Version® Anglicized, NIV® Copyright © 1979, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.