Mourning our sin

Lamentations 1:1-11, Psalm 115:2-8, Hosea 2 

Have you ever read any of Shakespeare’s tragedies? I remember sitting in my Shakespeare class feeling stressed about how progressively sad each story was. We probably feel that as we open to Lamentations 1 and read the first verse, “How lonely sits the city that once had many people!” This book was written around 587 BC after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. The writer is both experiencing and remembering the fulfillment of God’s promises. 

He remembers the promise of the God who brought them into a flourishing land of milk and honey. He gave Israel the influence to draw the nations in to proclaim their God. Yet, that didn’t happen. Corruption and evil happened. If you read 1 & 2 Kings, you see that many of the introductions of each king begin with, “He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and walked in the way of his father, and in his sin which he made Israel sin.” Israel turned to sin, greed, and idolatry instead of keeping to God’s design of ethical distinctiveness and glorifying God. 

So, we see God continue to keep his promises which we read in Hosea 2. We read that, and it’s easy to put up a wall and think - that is how God used to be. Yet, I think the writer of Lamentations is not only mourning the destruction of Jerusalem but mourning what she used to be. Mourning of the faithfulness to God. Mourning the splendor of God’s promises exuding out of this mighty city. Yet, they had fallen. They gave way to sin, selfishness, greed, and idols. 

Isn’t this us too? How often do we cry on Sunday and then Monday night turn right back to the altars of the dead idols we’ve built? 

Let us not avoid mourning. Let it reveal where we need to repent. Let it reveal the weight of our sin and disobedience. 

And then let it lead us back to the cross where we may be met with undeserved kindness, grace, and forgiveness. Let it lead us to turn our mourning into dances of praise and worship.