Unfiltered Mourning
Publishing Date: 5/20/23
Lamentations 5:1-18
Suppose you remember back to the introduction of this series. In that case, you might recall that four of the five poems in this collection are acrostic, evoking the idea that the mourning of the Israelites is all-consuming or ranging from ‘A to Z.’
In chapter 5, the acrostic structure is broken as the author goes into a final poem of grief. He depicts the all-consuming nature of Israel’s grief by describing how people suffer.
What can we learn about grief from the structure and contents of this poem?
Firstly, Jeremiah shows us we can bring our raw, disorganized, unfiltered selves to God. By breaking the organized poetic structure of the book, he shows us that there is no need to bring our polished and processed feelings to God, but we can come as we are. Our God is accustomed to coming into our chaos. He has done so since the beginning of creation. He wants our authentic selves. Just let it out in times of grief, anger, or doubt. God can take it.
Secondly, Jeremiah doesn’t take only his anger to God, but he goes to God on behalf of others. He laments over the pain of all the different people groups in his community. How often do we lament on behalf of others? When we see injustice and suffering in our community, what do we do with that? Jesus embodied justice-oriented compassion. Think about all the places we see Jesus healing people or setting them free from sin. When we see or experience oppression and suffering, we must take those things to our God, who can heal and redeem us. Lamenting to God is not an exclusively self-oriented action. Like Jeremiah, we can be people who compassionately lament on behalf of others.
Who in your community might be suffering right now? Is there an individual going through a crisis? Is there a group of people that have been treated unfairly? Bring these laments to God today. Our God is compassionate, so we must be a compassionate people. This means we should lament for others.
As you end your devotional time today, take a moment to go before our gracious and compassionate God with your unfiltered feelings. God is listening with a compassionate ear. Secondly, ask the spirit to burden you for a person or group of people in your community who you can lament for. Bring their pain to God, and ask him if there is any action step you can take to comfort them.
