On sermon preparation: the benefits of starting early and finishing well

 

I can’t claim to be super organised and disciplined about my sermon preparation. I don’t like Stephen Kneale normally prepare my sermons about three months in advance. In fact it’s not even that I always do my exegesis on a Tuesday morning, work out the structure and points of my sermon on a Wednesday afternoon and finish my prep on Saturday.

But I do have two thoughts that might be helpful:

(1) Plan and read the text as early as you can.

You could do your sermon entirely on Friday and Saturday. But probably serval people in the church will want to know the text earlier, perhaps for the notice sheet, service materials, musicians and readers. And even if no one is bugging you for these things on a Tuesday, I think there is great benefit in knowing what you are going to preach and some of the relevant issues as soon as you can. That way the power of mulling over the text and themes can take place as you walk the dog and drive around the parish. You may even have the chance to chat with others about something related to the sermon. And you can keep an eye out for relevant illustrations and application.

So, at a minimum, I would always suggest reading the text on a Monday morning and beginning to think about it.

(2) Know where you’re going a couple of days ahead.

I’m pleased to say that my regular sermon preparation isn’t always like the weekly student essay crisis. It is a long time since I have done an all-nighter. Though sometimes there are adjustments on a Sunday morning! I like to think of this as keeping things fresh and interesting.

Anyway, what would be an ideal healthy pattern?

I normally have my day off on a Friday. And often Saturdays can be pretty full with events and meetings – as well as family stuff. I’ve found it very beneficial, if possible, to try to know where I’m going with the sermon by the end of work on a Thursday. And of course it is lovely if you don’t always have to work until 11pm the night before you’re day off.

Ideally, one might have some idea of:

Introduction – way in

Main points / structure

Illustrations?

Applications

Conclusion / ending.

If my sermon preparation isn’t where I would like to it to be, I can find that I ruminate about it on my day off or in bed, which you don’t want to do too often.

There are great benefits, I think, to knowing that you have something in hand before a last minute panic, though some people may depend on a deadline to focus them on some decisions!

One can never really say that a sermon is ideally perfected and “finished”, but if you’ve got a plan, you can be freed up to think carefully about your hearers, how you might communicate and so on. I reckon many of us are tempted to neglect this last 20% of sermon preparation which goes beyond an aim sentence and some points.

We would do well to start early, but if we can, we should also try to leave some space to finish well, to re-visit and improve what we have. And, of course, also to pray.

Maybe the preparation of ourselves is even more neglected than the preparation of our sermons.  

 

The Lovely Shepherd

It’s easy for a townie like me to begin to think of everything to do with sheep and lambs as all rather lovely and cuddly. It’s not hard to conjure up a pastoral idle, is it? We just have to think of lambs frolicking in the spring sunshine to let out an aaaah! What could be more delightful and adorable?

 

But the picture in John 10 is rather more realistic and hard-headed. There’s something of an edge.   Jesus would say to us that it’s not all sweetness and light out there. In fact, in some ways it’s a jungle. There are thieves and robbers, wolves and hired hands who will leg it at the first sign of real danger.

 

Jesus is the Good Shepherd, and perhaps that implies that there are bad shepherds.

 

In Old Testament times, the people of God were basically shepherd types. Think of the flocks of Abraham and his children, of Moses and David.

 

The Bible frequently uses the metaphor of shepherds for the leaders of the people, for the king, prophets and priests and so on. We get the word “pastor” of course from the idea of a shepherd who leads his animals to pasture.

 

Often in the history of Israel, the shepherds of the people had been unfaithful. And in Jesus’ own day, it was the leaders who most opposed him, who stirred up the people to call for his crucifixion.

 

We could turn to a number of Old Testament texts but Ezekiel 34 is the fullest denunciation of the shepherds of Israel who take care of themselves but not their people. The shepherd-leaders live it up while the people-sheep are neglected. The weak, injured, lost and straying suffer. The shepherds are harsh and brutal, and the flock is scattered and preyed upon. These are shepherds who are only in leadership for themselves. They want to get, not give. (And church history and the present day sadly contain many other examples of under-shepherds who fail to even approximate the example of the Chief Shepherd).

 

So God promises to judge and remove those wicked shepherds. He himself will come and shepherd his people. And he promises them one Shepherd, whom he calls “David”, who will lead the people.

 

And so Jesus calls himself the good shepherd. Jesus is God himself come to shepherd the people, in fulfilment of God’s promise. Jesus is the descendant of King David, the Davidic Messiah, who will lead and save them.

 

We need the Good Shepherd who cares for us and will die for us (v11).

 

Of course sheep need a shepherd. Without someone to lead and provide for them, they might go hungry or get eaten. But its just worth pausing for a moment to step outside the metaphor to realise that the New Testament thinks of us as in serious danger. Think of perhaps the most famous verse in John’s Gospel, John 3:16. It says that unless we believe in Jesus, we will perish. “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Without Jesus we would be ruined, utterly lost, we would die or perish everlastingly.

 

We face not wolves or lions or food shortages, but sin and its consequences: death and hell.  Jesus came to rescue us from the judgement we all deserve.  Jesus wasn’t messing about. He means to do more than give us a comforting image. His death and resurrection were absolutely necessary. The incarnation and the cross surely show us our need. The resurrection confirms to us that our need is perfectly met. Jesus must lay down his life and take it up again. That is the Father’s plan and the Son’s willing mission. Nothing else can save us and keep us safe eternally.  

 

So this perhaps apparently delightful passage about sheep and shepherds turns out to be serious and urgent.

 

In Jesus’ image / proto-parable, the hired hand actually behaves sensibly!  (vv12-13) Of course if it gets too dangerous, the minimum wage employee would leg it. I would. Wouldn’t you? In fact, any shepherd in his right mind would too! Shepherds don’t die for their sheep. In fact, sheep die for their shepherds! (In Jesus’ day apparently it wasn’t so much a matter of roast lamb, as it is for us today: they kept the sheep longer for their meat, wool and milk, so arguably shepherds typically knew their flocks better and would bond with them more. The Shepherd might walk ahead of his sheep, rather than look at them from a Land Rover, but in the end the sheep always ends up in the Shepherd’s pie or at market.)

 

I’ve discovered this week that “how much is a sheep worth” is actually a pretty difficult question to answer. It seems to be a bit more like asking how much a footballer or a car are worth, rather than the price of a pint of milk. Google suggested between £5 and £8 a KG. I’m told that prices are good at the moment and that you might get £160 for a lamb, if you’re lucky.

 

Anyway, no sheep, however valuable is really worth dying for, is it? Not at any price!

 

In 2020, the BBC reported that the World's most expensive sheep was sold for £368,000.

The six-month-old Texel ram was sold in Lanark by breeder Charlie Boden to a consortium of sheep farmers. Even so, it would be crazy to die even for a prize sheep.

 

But Jesus values us, his flock, our souls above his own life.

 

This shepherd has ridiculous job-loyalty! A good shepherd checks on his flock regularly and mends the fences![1] Jesus the good shepherd dies for his sheep.

 

Jesus loves and cares for us to a crazy degree. He came from heaven to save us. He was willing to give up his all for us.  

 

Jesus is the Good Shepherd. But it would be a mistake to think of him as the lovely shepherd. Jesus is gentle and lowly, yes. He is loving and kind. Of course! He is love incarnate. But there is also a toughness and a resolve to Jesus. He would fearlessly call out the religious leaders of his day and clear the temple with a whip. Jesus was no wimp.

 

Jesus was willing to face down our enemies (sin and death) for us and he overcame them. He is our hero, our champion. He willingly drank the cup of wrath which the Father gave him. He endured hell for us and came out the other side victorious. He showed the valour of David who, trusting God, knew how to fight a lion or a bear to save his sheep and who would defeat Goliath to win victory for his people.   

 

And so let us pray for grace to hear the voice of Jesus in the call of the gospel and the Scriptures and to respond to Jesus in faith and obedience. As Jesus the Good Shepherd would go ahead and call his sheep “Come on Barbara, Ewan, Lambert, Shawn, Ramsey!”, let us follow him.

 

The Good Shepherd means to call his sheep from all the nations into one flock under one shepherd. So let’s get on board with his purpose of bringing in other sheep that there might be one flock under one shepherd.

 

---

[1] These phrases are taken from Glen Scrivener on John 10 in Reading Between The Lines (10 of those) volume 2

Walking

 I tried to collect all the Bible verses that speak of "walking" here: https://www.churchsociety.org/resource/walking-together/

Kevin Vanhoozer also has some interesting comments on the Christian life as a call to movement, to walking in the Way of Jesus in Hearers and Doers: A Pastor's Guide to Making Disciples Through Scripture and Doctrine (Lexham Press, 2019) pp57-62 which also draws on John Webster, 'Discipleship and Calling', Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology 23 (2005)

One thing

 

From The Rectory

 

I wonder if you sometimes feel there’s just too much to do? And the to do list never seems to get any shorter – more things get added as quickly as you can cross things off. Perhaps you feel you have too much on your mind? You’re running from one thing to the next, pulled in multiple competing directions.

 

I have been reading a business book by Greg McKeown, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less (Virgin Books / Ebury Publishing / Penguin Random House, 2014). McKeown describes two experiences that caused him to rethink how he was living. As a young man, he sat down with a blank sheet of paper and brainstormed for twenty minutes about what he might like to do with his life. He had filled the paper. But he noticed that nowhere did it say “Go to Law School.” Which he says was awkward, as he was currently pursing legal studies.

 

Second, he tells of an email which he received from his boss while his wife was pregnant. It said, “1-2pm on Friday would be really bad time to have this baby.” He sort of assumed it was a joke. But sure enough the baby was born on Friday. After being with his wife in the hospital, McKeown headed off to the supposedly crucial client meeting. His boss claimed the client admired him for being there at such a time, but McKeown wasn’t sure he did. And in fact nothing ever came of the meeting, even though McKeown had managed to upset his wife by going to it. McKeown concluded he’d got his priorities wrong. What seemed essential, really wasn’t.

 

In fact, McKeown points out that for 500 years the English word “priority” was only ever used in the singular. It meant the prior, the first, thing. But since 1900 we can speak of “priorities”. He describes working for a company which listed its ten top priorities. Of course, if we are trying to focus on ten first things, it is very hard to do any of them really well.

 

We would each do well, perhaps, to pause and ask what few things really matter to us the most.

 

Jesus was asked which was the most important commandment. He said it is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”. And the second most important commandment was like the first: to “love your neighbour as yourself.” (Mark 12:30-31)

 

But if we wanted to get it down to just one thing, Jesus in fact once said that only one thing was needful. It’s in a story about Martha and Mary, sisters who seem to have been very different characters. Jesus and his disciples were coming to their house. Martha was conscious there was so much to do! She was busy and distracted, anxious about many things, serving, working hard, getting things ready. While her sister bustled about, Mary sat at Jesus’ feet listening to him, in the classic position of a disciple (a learner or apprentice) attending to a Master-Teacher (a Rabbi). Jesus says only a “few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:38-42)

 

Whatever else we do, the one great essential thing is to take the time and space we need to listen to Jesus, to receive his words and to put them into practice. I don’t want to give you another thing for your already lengthy to do list, but loving Jesus and living as his disciple in friendship with him really is the most important thing which would transform everything else. Taking some time consciously most days, as it were, to sit at Jesus’ feet and learn from him, to pray and read the Bible would be transformative. We may even find that a bit of peace and quiet, with casting our anxieties on to Jesus, knowing that he cares for us, might make us rather less stressed (see 1 Peter 5:6-7). We might see our way to crossing a few things off the to do list. And to facing our responsibilities knowing that Jesus only wants us to do what we can, not what we can’t. Let’s pray that we might not neglect the one essential needful thing for the sake of so many other good things (some of which we no doubt ought to do!).    

The Revd Marc Lloyd

Mark's Gospel - A very brief introduction

 I wanted to write less than a page of A4 for those who perhaps have little Christian background to help with reading or listening to Mark's Gospel:

A brief introduction to reading

Mark’s Gospel

 

Mark’s gospel is one of the earliest accounts of the life of Jesus. It is traditionally thought to be based on the eye-witness evidence of Jesus’ disciple, the Apostle Simon Peter.

 

Like the rest of the bible, Mark is divided up in to chapters and verses. For example, “Mark 4:1-20” means “chapter 4 verses 1 to 20”, Jesus’ parable of the Sower. These notes might help you as you read (or listen to) Mark’s gospel for yourself.  You can find it online at https://www.biblegateway.com/ You might try “The New International Version” translation (NIV).

 

The first line of the gospel gives us a kind of heading or headline to introduce the book. This is the best news in the world ever about a real man, Jesus (which means “God saves”), the Christ or Messiah (the anointed one), the long-promised Rescuer-King the Old Testament Scriptures had predicted, the Son of God.

 

As you read the gospel, you might think about three issues:

 

·       Jesus’ identity: who is he?

·       Jesus’ purpose: why did he come?

·       And our response to him: what does it mean to be disciple (learner / apprentice) or follower of Jesus?

 

Jesus announces the kingdom of God (1:15). Because Jesus, God’s appointed king, has come, the kingdom of God is present. He calls us to repent, to change our minds, to turn away from sin and turn to him and to believe the good news. Jesus wants us to put our trust in him and follow him.  

 

The first half of the gospel especially shows us Jesus’ unique authority as God the Son. He calls his disciples, drives out evil spirits and heals many (chapter 1). He does what only God can do: he forgives sins (2:1-12). As the Creator God, he can command the storm (4:35-end). 

 

8:27-38 is the central turning point of the gospel. Jesus asks his disciples who they believe he is, and explains that he must suffer and die, and what it means to follow him.

 

Notice how much of the gospel is devoted to the last week of Jesus’ life (chapters 11-16), to his death and resurrection. Jesus came to die. Jesus’ death is necessary as part of God’s plan to save us. Jesus gives his life as a ransom for many (10:45). He dies in our place that we might be forgiven and live. He faces the holy anger of God against sin so that the way to God is open for all who trust in him (15:33-39). Jesus rose from the grave, victorious over sin and death.

Danny Kruger, Covenant

 

Covenant: The New Politics of Home, Neighbourhood and Nation

Danny Kruger

Forum / Swift Press, 2023 (ISBN: 9781800752115 hb, 149pp)

 

Danny Kruger, a Conservative MP with an Oxford DPhil in history, seeks to set out a social and political vision oriented towards The Good Life and virtuous living. He claims our culture seems to be searching for something. “We want a life that is both embodied and enchanted: rooted, tactile, sweaty, but also lit by sacred fire. We want a life of function (to be useful and fully used) and of place (to identify with a piece of land and the people of it), and for these things to be food for the body and food for the soul.” (p82)

 

We need to value not only care and fairness but recapture a sense of authority, loyalty and sanctity (p60). Kruger wants to restore and further what he calls “The Order” which is social and other people oriented with a network of relationships, obligations and commitments fostered by institutions. He contrasts this with “The Idea”, the gnostic sense that my own autonomy is all, that I should discover or define my identity according to what I feel to be my inner self, regardless of physical or external realities. Kruger thinks the word “woke” is rather trivial. “Cultural Marxism” is preferable: revolutionary tribes war over identity, self-interest and ideology rather than merely over the means of production. He prefers the term “transgressive” to describe those who in a spirit of grievance want to overthrow all that might restrain “the dominant individual will” (p39).

 

Kruger thinks “we are born to worship: this is our essence, as primary as our existence.” (p40) He contends that “the culture war… is a religious conflict about the right gods to worship.” (p25) “You are what you worship. Your identity is a reflection of your god, the thing you venerate, which gives life meaning and explains good and evil. A culture is the act of common worship, and so a community or a civilisation might best be defined in terms of the gods the people serve.” (p29) In our post-Christian age, “we worship ourselves… more particularly the individual person, and even more particularly the person within: ‘the real me.’” (p30)

 

Kruger argues not just for contracts but for the covenant of marriage as the basis for a flourishing society, and for a covenant of place and nation. He even claims that “all politics might be said to come down to the regulation of sex and death.” (p62). The family and household are central to him. “We cannot carry on as if the purpose of life is the restless quest. The alteration we need is the one that a single person, hitherto alone and self-focused, undergoes on falling in love, getting married and starting a family. We need to move from a one-bed flat to a family home.” The general economy should make “it as easy as possible to form and sustain a household.” (p87) Though some may not choose or fit this pattern, the generalisation is for the good of the wider community, not only the oikos but the par-oikos or parish which would support others too. He wants to see parents central to education and more local socially responsible decision making with everyone politically engaged.

 

Kruger takes in not only civil society, but our relationship to the natural environment. Paganisms tended to see humanity as subject to nature but we should see ourselves as stewards of creation, intended to have dominion rather than domination, cultivation rather than exploitation.

 

As well as Edmund Burke, Roger Scruton, Jonathan Haidt, Jonathan Sumption and others, Kruger cites Carl Trueman, Colin Gunton, John Milbank, Andrew Rumsey, Alasdair MacIntyre and Tom Holland’s Dominion. He is influenced by David Godhart’s work on “Somewhere”s and argues that too many people uproot to go to university and join a precariat.  

 

We are certainly given a big vision with bold brushstrokes here. I sometimes wondered how this might be achieved. But Kruger does have specific policy proposals for example around planning and Community Land Trusts, law, education, social care and welfare insurance. He wants to see work which is local and meaningful, likely focused around creativity or care. We should value more the support families can give to their own children and their elderly relatives rather than depending entirely on the nursery or the care home. This involves a taxation system that supports the household with more people able to manage on one wage or two part-time wages. Well paid local jobs and technology would allow more time for involvement in civil society and volunteering.

 

Whilst recognising that “there is little to boast of in many aspects of modern England, and much to learn from others” (p142), Kruger hopes for a sense of Englishness that can recapture something of her discordant heroic, gentle, progressive, conservative spirit in “the great project of defence and restoration that is needed.” (p144)

 

Music as sacramental

From the extraordinarily useful and interesting looking St Andrews Encylopedia of Theology (a new free online resource). This is from Jeremy Begbie on theology and music:

https://www.saet.ac.uk/Christianity/MusicintheWesternTheologicalTradition#section3.2

 Theological questions may well be asked about what kind of deity haunts Steiner’s allusive prose, for in this scenario God’s basic relation to humans appears to be essentially antagonistic, and God’s nature wholly undifferentiated, monadic (Horne 1995). Less stark in this respect, and relying more on the notion of music as a mediator of divine presence, are writers who speak of music in terms of sacrament or the sacramental. Albert Blackwell, for example, pulls from diverse sources (including Augustine, Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, Schleiermacher, Paul Tillich, and Simone Weil) to demonstrate music’s sacramental potential (Blackwell 1999). He understands ‘sacramental’ as applying to ‘any finite reality through which the divine is perceived to be disclosed and communicated, and through which our human response to the divine assumes some measure of shape, form, and structure’ (Blackwell 1999: 28; quoting McBrien 1980: 731, original emphasis). Blackwell delineates two broad traditions of sacramental encounter in Christianity as applied to music: the ‘Pythagorean’ and the ‘incarnational’ (Blackwell 1999: 37–48). According to the first (already explored above), ‘as mathematics expresses cosmic order, so music echoes cosmic harmony’ (Blackwell 1999: 43). Reflection on this can engender a sense of trust in in the world’s order which in turn can lead to ‘trust in the second Person of the Trinity’ (Blackwell 1999: 86), the world’s Logos. The ‘incarnational’ tradition privileges the sensed materiality of music: citing Schleiermacher among others, Blackwell links the immediacy of embodied musical perception to a primordial religious awareness of the ultimate givenness of our lives and the world, of being wholly dependent on and immersed in a limitless ground.

Reflections from Lamentations for Good Friday

 

Some of us have been using this Easter Devotional during Lent called Finding Mercy on the Way of Sorrows[1], which draws on the Old Testament book of Lamentations.

So as we consider the cross of Christ and Good Friday together today, I’m going to invite us to spend a little more time in Lamentations.

 

Perhaps this is the darkest book of the Bible, as its name suggests.

A number of writers have suggested that today’s church might need to recover the lost art of Biblical Christian Lament, which is perhaps something to think about.  

As we consider the book of Lamentations, we can see here something of sin and its consequences, and how to wrestle with them.

And we see something of why the cross was necessary, and what the Lord Jesus endured for us.

We see here something of what we are saved FROM.  

It may not be pleasant to live in Lamentations for a while, but it might help us to appreciate the deliverance of Easter Sunday all the more.

 

The book of Lamentations is set after the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in 587 BC.

 

The book is five chapters long.

We’ll read just the first three today.

 

Each of the first four chapters is an acrostic poem.

Each verse begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and then this form breaks down in the final chapter.

Again and again, the book shows us an A to Z of sorrow and suffering – although not without hope[2].

 

Much is chaos, but our poet also tries to bring some order to it, to make some sense of it.

 

One of the controlling metaphors of the Bible is to think of the people of God as his bride, whom he loves.

And here the city of Jerusalem is pictured as a great queen who has become a widow and a slave.

 

The much-loved holy city of Jerusalem has been devastated by the Babylonians because of the people’s sin. 

 

Let’s read the first chapter:

 

1^st reading: Lamentations 1

 

Apparently random meaningless disasters are hard enough to bear.

But in this case, the poet of Lamentations is clear that the destruction of Jerusalem is God’s doing.

The LORD has brought her grief because of her many sins.

And the poet can see that the LORD is righteous in all this.

 

We’ve heard descriptions of the hights from which Jerusalem has fallen – what she was, what she has lost, what she has become.

She has gone into exile, and that can be a picture of the human predicament of alienation.

Think of Adam and Eve’s exile from Eden after their fall, excluded from its blessings, barred from the tree of life, driven away from the blessing of God’s presence.

Spiritually, our sins separate us from God.

Without Christ, we are in a kind of spiritual exile.  

And Jesus went into exile for us on the cross.

He was separated from the favour of God for us in our place that we might be brought home.

Jesus went into the far country, that we might have a place with God again.  

 

The church has traditionally read the book of Lamentations during Holy Week.

And we might see in Jerusalem’s suffering at the hand of God, a picture of the suffering of the Lord Jesus.

 

In particular, think again of v12:

 

“Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?

Look around and see.

Is any suffering like my suffering that has been inflicted on me, that the LORD has brought on me in the day of his fierce anger?”

 

We might imagine those who passed by the cross, perhaps indifferent, perhaps scornful, mocking the Lord Jesus for the disaster which has come upon him.

Matthew tells us that some of the passers by hurled insults at Jesus and shook their heads. (Matthew 27:38-40).

Jesus’ story seems to end in ruin and his opponents deride him, rather as Jerusalem was mocked.

All the promises of God, all the hopes seem to lie in ruins.

  

Although many people were crucified, there was no suffering like the suffering of the Lord Jesus: the unique Son of God bore the sins of all who would put their trust in him.

There was truly no darker hour.

 

Charles Wesley’s hymn urges us:

 

All ye that pass by,

To Jesus draw nigh:

To you is it nothing that Jesus should die?

Your ransom and peace,

Your surety He is;

Come, see if there ever was sorrow like His.[3]

 

This bleak and dark chapter is not without hope.

The poet still calls out to God for vindication and deliverance – and there’s hope in that.

“Look, O LORD, on my afflictions, for the enemy has triumphed.”

Rather than mere despair, there’s prayer.

The poet brings his anguish to God, which is an act of faith. 

 

The only place to flee from the wrath of God is to God.

 

The poet knows that his suffering is just and from God.

And yet he also cries out to God for salvation and for judgement on his enemies.

We may think of the Lord Jesus who entrusted himself to him who judges justly.

He knows that the cross is God’s will for him and he looks to his Father to bring him through it.

Amazingly, Jesus even prayed for his persecutors.

And in the midst of his suffering and death, he looked for the vindication that was to come beyond the grave.

His salvation is not so much from suffering but through suffering.

The cross will lead to the resurrection.

 

And although Lamentations doesn’t major on this, we know that later in the history of Israel there’ll be something of a return from exile, there’ll be a rebuilding of the city and an ongoing life for the people of God.

In fact, the Bible will end with a city coming down out of heaven from God, dressed and prepared like a bride.

God hasn’t given up on his people or his promises.  

The church, the people of God, the City of God, will be an innumerable multitude gathered from all the nations to live with God under his blessing.

That hope is the ultimate fulfilment of Lamentations and of the cross.  

 

* * *  

 

Chapters one and two of Lamentations both begin with the same question: “How…?”[4]

The focus in chapter one was mainly on “she”, on Jerusalem.

Now the focus is more particularly on “he”, on God[5].

 

Let’s read chapter two:

 

2^nd reading: Lamentations 2

 

Some of that chapter is quite terrible, isn’t it?

There is, I’m afraid, little extra to say by way of relief as yet in this chapter.

The Bible is very realistic about human sin and suffering.

It doesn’t peddle easy answers or quick fixes.

We are tempted to rush on, to look away, but the Bible encourages us to wait.

 

The LORD has become like an enemy to his own people.

Again and again the chapter speaks of God’s wrath, his righteous anger, against his own people.

In a way, God’s wrath shows that he cares.

He’s not indifferent to human actions or to injustice and wrong doing.

God treats us with full seriousness.

We often cry out for justice, and God hears that cry.  

 

Apathy and indifference would be the real opposite of love.

Wrath is an expression of love in the face of evil.

God cares.

 

And the cross will be God’s answer to all this:

To sin and wrath and suffering and injustice.

To enmity with God, to exile.

 

It is while we were Christ’s enemies that he dies for us.

We need to be reconciled to God.

But not only so:

God needs to be reconciled to us.

God in his holy anger stands opposed to us as sinners.

 

God is not just an indulgent grandfather to whom sin doesn’t matter.

Justice is done at the cross.

Evil has its full weight.

In Jesus God-himself reckons with the full force and price of sin.

 

And so that’s the wonder of the gospel:

That God in his love himself provides the means of reconciliation between us and him.

God’s holy wrath is spent on God himself in the person of his Son, in the God-Man Jesus Christ.

God appeases and satisfied and spends his own wrath on himself, that we might know his love.

The price is fully paid.

The way home is open.

Jesus draws us with his arms of love.

He stands ready to welcome us and to restore us as dearly loved children and heirs.

Will we come to him?

To his embrace?

To his welcome home?

Jesus would say to us, Come, it is finished, it’s all over, it’s dealt with.

Don’t be afraid.

Don’t worry.

Come!

 

* * *

 

We’ve noticed already in chapters one and two of Lamentations that the point of view or voice of the speaker seems to shift.

Chapter one spoke mainly of “she”, Jerusalem, and chapter two of “he”, God.  

But now we hear someone speaking in the first person – as the “I” who suffers:

v1, “I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of his [God’s] wrath”.

Rather than the whole city, one suffering man now takes centre stage.

As I’ve suggested, we might see an echo or a picture – a type as theologians sometimes call it – of the suffering of Christ here.

Here is the cross foreshadowed in the book’s longest central chapter[6].

As one man stands at the centre of this book, so one man stands at the centre of the Scriptures.

So as we reflect on this chapter, let us, “Behold the man!”, the Lord Jesus Christ (John 19:5).

 

And you’ll be pleased to hear that some of the most hopeful parts of this book come in this chapter, including the only words from the book which most of us probably know, made famous by the hymn.

 

3^rd reading: Lamentations 3

 

Because of God’s great love for us we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.

They are new every morning.

Great is your faithfulness.

 

The cross shows us both the great love and the great righteousness of God. 

The cross is God’s just way of justifying the unjust.

Justice and mercy meet at the cross.

 

God is faithful to his people despite our unfaithfulness.

God keeps his covenant and fulfils his promises.

All of them are YES and AMEN in Jesus.

 

So the LORD is good to those who hope in him.

Jesus knew the salvation of God through death to resurrection.

 

Though the people of the Old Testament had to wait to see the fullness of this salvation, as we do, we know that the LORD has not cast us off for ever.

His love is unfailing.

His love wins.

 

So God says to us, “Do not fear.”

We can look to him with confidence because he has redeemed us. 

 

We won’t read chapters 4 and 5 today, but let me finish our reflections in Lamentations by referring to the very end of the book.

You might like to look at chapter 5, verse 19.

We know that the LORD reigns for ever.

His throne endures from generation to generation.

The Lord does not forget his people for ever.

Jesus was forsaken that we might be brought home.

In God’s mercy, we are not utterly rejected.

He is not angry beyond measure.

 

It was finished when the Messiah died.

The legal pain was exacted – measure for measure – the price fully paid.

 

So let us pray the final prayer of the book of Lamentations:

Restore us to yourself, O LORD, that we might return.

V21 actually uses the same word “turn back” or “return” twice.  

So more literally, it’s “turn us to you, O LORD, and we turn back.”

Cause us to return to you, O LORD, and we shall return.

 

As we stand again at the foot of the cross, we know that God has turned towards us in love.

Let us pray that he would turn our hearts back to him and that we might live as his faithful hopeful people, even in the face of suffering.

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[1] Robin Ham (10 Publishing, 2024)

[2] For more on the poetry and translation of Lamentations, see David Lee’s work at: http://servicemusic.org.uk/scripture/lamentations/

[3] Quoted by Ham, p23

[4] As does chapter 4.

[5] Ham, p32. Chapter 3 focuses on as “I”, a suffering man. See also p102. Chapter 4 focuses on “they”, the people of the city, and chapter 5 on “we”.

[6] The above draws on Ham, page 56f.