Sermon on Lamentations 4–5: Suffering, repentance, and the hope of final rescue
A sermon by Tim Capill closing a short series on the book of Lamentations at Latimer Church.
Summary
Tim Capill delivers the concluding sermon in Latimer Church's series on Lamentations, working through chapters 4 and 5 before stepping back to reflect on the book as a whole. Chapter 4 depicts the catastrophic suffering of God's people following Babylon's destruction of Jerusalem — including the breakdown of family bonds, starvation, and the exposure of failed leadership among prophets, priests, and king alike — and presents this as the righteous judgment of God following repeated warnings. Chapter 5 marks a significant shift: the people themselves, in the first collective voice of the book, cry out to God in repentance and appeal to his covenant promises to remember and restore them. Capill argues that Lamentations was written for two audiences — future generations who would praise God for his faithfulness in rescuing an undeserving people, and those who must never forget the horror of turning away from God. He closes by presenting Jesus as the final answer to the cycle of sin, judgment, and rescue that Lamentations embodies, and extends an invitation both to those who don't yet know God and to those who do.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Introduction: Closing the series on Lamentations
Tim Capill: Today we close our short series in the book of Lamentations. Although it's not an easy book, even its very inclusion — and we've seen this over the last couple of weeks — even its very inclusion in the Bible is a gracious gift from God. It shows that God and the Bible never hide from the confusing and complex parts of real life, and helps us to think through reconciling that with God's character. But Lamentations also gives us a space to voice the very real struggles that we face in this life, even as followers of God, and even those struggles which have God at their centre. Our God is big enough for us to cry out to him in our darkest hours, to be honest with him, and that is a great, gracious gift from God.
Lamentations, if you remember and if you've been with us, was written after Jerusalem was conquered and destroyed by the nation of Babylon, the superpower of the day. Although it clearly acknowledges that while Babylon may have been the tool, Babylon were the instrument of God's judgment, which brought justice to an unrepentant and sinful nation.
In the first two chapters, our lamenter cried out as the representative of God's nation and city. He took an honest look at the situation in front of him, an honest look at the sin that had caused it, even an honest look at the God who brought his judgment to bear with such severity.
In chapter three, which we looked at last week if you were here with us, in the midst of expressing his own personal experience and anguish, our lamenter moved from looking to remembering. And if you remember, he intentionally called to mind the history of God's patience and faithfulness to continually save people, despite their persistent pattern of walking away from God and his blessings. We had those wonderful verses where he wasn't blind to the situation at hand, but he stepped back to remember a larger perspective. The words from verse 19: I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them and my soul is downcast within me. And yet this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope. Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness, O Lord. And so I said to myself, the Lord is my portion, and therefore I will wait for him.
From there flowed two calls. The first call was to the people to repent of their sin and to cry out to God. The second was a call to God to redeem and to rescue the people, and to bring judgment on those who had carried out such atrocities against them.
And so it might be quite surprising, as we hear today's reading, to move from a seemingly more positive chapter 3 and continue to find chapters 4 and 5 almost completely bereft of hope — as if what's just been remembered has immediately been forgotten. Surely you'd think there'd be some sort of change. Even just a little more hope would be nice. Now I won't lie, there remains some uncertainty and there isn't a great deal of hope. But friends, there is enough. And I hope you see that before we close.
Chapter 4: The people suffer
Today we're going to unpack the final two chapters pretty briefly, and then we're going to take some time to think about Lamentations as a whole and how it should shape our own thinking even today.
We're going to start with chapter 4, where the people suffer. And if you've been reading through Lamentations as we have, there's at least one change in this chapter, which is now a direct focus on the people themselves. In the first couple of chapters, the writer speaks poetically about daughter Zion and daughter Jerusalem, almost looking down on the subject matter from above, somehow aloof from it even as he's in amongst it. But in chapter 4, while still poetic, we really are amongst the people themselves. We're seeing what it was like for them, and it's not a pleasant sight.
Verse 1 opens and paints a picture of a people who once were prosperous and settled, healthy and wealthy — now impoverished, scattered, and suffering. Verse 5: those who once ate delicacies are now destitute; those once in royal luxury now lie on ash heaps. Verses 7 and 8: the princes, once brighter than snow — that is, presumably clean and washed — are now blacker than soot, dirty to the point of being unrecognisable. Once red-cheeked and healthy in appearance, more ruddy than rubies as verse 7 puts it, well now their skin has shrivelled on their bones and become as dry as a stick.
But more, and harder for us to swallow perhaps, is what happens to the families and their children. As the nation goes from feast to famine, families that should care and feed and sustain one another turn in a different direction entirely. Verses 2, 3, 4, 9 and 10 are just awful. A lack of food and provision means that survival is paramount, and the almost unfathomable truth is that not only are parents unable or unwilling to feed their children — perhaps knowing that even if they starved themselves for the good of their children, the children wouldn't survive afterward anyway — but then as the children are dying, they become food for the very people who should have been feeding them. These compassionate women, verse 10, are forced to do the unthinkable: eating their own children, the writer says, as his people are destroyed.
And so you've got to think he's not just saying that they're being killed. The very fabric of the society which was once precious and good is now breaking down in the face of realities beyond their ability to cope with.
God's righteous judgment and its causes
And possibly the hardest thing for us to understand is that, as verse 11 continues to show us, this is the Lord's judgment. The Lord has given full vent to his wrath. He has poured out his fierce anger. He kindled a fire in Zion that consumed her foundations.
And friends, there's no doubt that we struggle with this aspect of God's character and reconciling it with all of his other aspects. And we're never going to understand this in one sitting, so we're not even going to try. But there are a few things worth mentioning.
Firstly — and I was reminded of this this morning, as Costa is preaching from 2 Chronicles about the very time that is being lamented over — you hear this about Israel from 2 Chronicles 36, verses 15 to 16: The Lord, the God of their ancestors, sent word to them through his messengers again and again, because the Lord had pity on his people and on his dwelling place. But they mocked God's messengers, despised his words and scoffed at his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord was aroused against his people and there was no remedy.
It's a fairly final phrase there, isn't it? There was no remedy. God gave every opportunity and every warning, and the people didn't listen. They brought this on themselves.
And Lamentations makes it clear it wasn't just the people — it was the leaders as well. Back in our chapter, verse 13: This happened because of the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests, who shed within her the blood of the righteous. The priests who should be making sacrifices on behalf of the people are shedding blood for their own good and not the good of the people.
And not them alone. As you get to verse 20, the writer says: The Lord's anointed — by which he means God's anointed king — who was our very life breath, was caught in their traps. We thought that under his shadow we would live among the nations. But no. The people have failed. The prophets have failed. The priests have failed. Even the king has failed. And that is what has caused this. God has brought this judgment about, but it was a righteous judgment given after repeated warning, and when you look at the facts and the sweep of history, almost unbelievable patience on God's part. It's not all of the answer, but it's one thing to remember.
A glimmer of hope: judgment is not the end
And it's worth noting that by the end of this chapter, God's judgment on Israel at this point in time is still not the end of the story, and you've got to keep that in mind as well. This comes up particularly in the last two verses of chapter 4. You get what might be quite strange verses, 21 and 22: Rejoice and be glad, daughter Edom, you who live in the land of Uz. But to you also the cup will be passed. You will be drunk and stripped naked — he means their sin will be exposed. Your punishment will end, daughter Zion — speaking to Israel — he will not prolong your exile. But he will punish your sin, daughter Edom, and expose your wickedness.
What does that mean? Well, without going into too much detail, Edom — and you find this out in other parts of the Bible, particularly the prophet Obadiah — Edom refused to help Israel in their time of need, gloating and even rejoicing at the predicament they were in. And the writer effectively says: laugh while you can, because God's judgment will also be coming your way at some point.
And likewise, if you were here with us last week, at the end of chapter 3 you also see that the writer knows that God's judgment will also be brought upon the nation of Babylon for what they have done. It's as if God's judgment at this time is his releasing of restraint on the people for a time — Babylon, Edom, and Israel. And from there it is the people who partake in this unspeakable evil, but you get this hint: it will not go unpunished. Justice will be done. God will not allow injustice. And so there's this final judgment still waiting. Chapter 4 is not the end of the story, and that's worth noting.
Chapter 5: The people cry out
So chapter 4: the people have suffered. Now chapter 5: the people cry out.
Much of this chapter simply describes again the situation being faced by God's people, albeit with a cry for God to remember and to restore. But even then, things end a little awkwardly. The last verse, after crying out for restoration from God, ends with that rather disturbing line: unless you have utterly rejected us and are angry with us beyond measure.
And so this might leave us thinking that Lamentations, while it had some bright moment in the middle, hasn't really progressed much past its opening verses. It's landed in a despair almost more desolate than it began.
However, did you notice what separates this chapter from the rest of Lamentations? It took me a few times reading it to cotton on. There is no first person singular in chapter 5. For the grammar nerds out there — there's no "I" and "me." Gone is the representative cry of the opening two chapters in the face of this destruction. Gone is the personal cry of the lamenter in the midst of his own experience in chapter 3. After his appeal to the people to examine themselves and to lift up their hearts and hands to God in heaven, and then a brutal description of what has been done to them as a people in chapter 4, the people themselves cry out.
More than anything else in chapter 5, this is what's important: as the people themselves take up the cry to God for rescue and restoration, they've realised — as with Chronicles — they are at fault, and there is no remedy unless God himself brings it about. The people cry out.
The meaning of crying out for God to "remember"
Now first of all they cry out for God to remember. This isn't because they think God has forgotten, even though you get that sentiment a little bit later on. It's because they know their scriptures. Where remembering on God's part isn't so much a comment on God's memory — it's more about his intentional and chosen timing to fulfil his promises.
There are lots of examples you can look at. The classic, as with last week, is to go back to Exodus. When Israel are in Egypt, you get these verses in chapter 2, verses 23 and 24: The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. And so he acts and rescues Israel through Moses, which God had promised would happen all the way back in Genesis 15.
But there's a more pertinent example to the present situation, and it's in Leviticus 26. It's worth reading this one in full. This concludes a much longer passage that says: after many failings and even more warnings, at some point in the future, if Israel remain hostile against God — which he says they will — God says this, Leviticus 26, verses 38 to 45:
You will one day in the future perish among the nations; the land of your enemies will devour you. Those of you who are left will waste away in the lands of their enemies because of their sins; also because of their ancestors' sins they will waste away. But if they will confess their sins and the sins of their ancestors — their unfaithfulness and their hostility toward me, which made me hostile toward them — so that I sent them into the land of their enemies, then when their uncircumcised hearts are humbled and they pay for their sin, I will remember my covenant with Jacob and my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. For the land will be deserted by them and will enjoy its Sabbath while it lies desolate without them. They will pay for their sins because they rejected my laws and abhorred my decrees. Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them or abhor them so as to destroy them completely, breaking my covenant with them. I am the Lord their God. But for their sake I will remember the covenant with their ancestors whom I brought out of Egypt in the sight of the nations to be their God. I am the Lord.
This is a promise. And so the people cry out in Lamentations 5 for the Lord to remember because they want God to act on his promises now and bring back the blessings promised in the covenant. And you've got to think — what's more, God told them that all this would happen. He was fully aware that they would reject him, and they're fully aware that they're the reason they're facing God's judgment, fulfilling their part of God's promise.
The people's repentance in Lamentations 5
So here, echoing Leviticus, we're back in Lamentations. Chapter 5, verse 7: the people cry, Our ancestors sinned and are no more, and we bear their punishment. They've seen the truth. But that's not all. Verse 16: The crown has fallen from our head. Woe to us, for we have sinned. They repent and turn to the Lord. They recognise their own sin and they cry out to God — the only thing they can possibly do. They throw themselves entirely on the mercy of their Lord, although with a few speed wobbles as they close.
So the last few verses of Lamentations, from verse 19: You, Lord, reign forever. Your throne endures from generation to generation. Why do you always forget us? Why do you forsake us so long? Restore us to yourself, Lord, that we may return. Renew our days of old — unless you have utterly rejected us and are angry with us beyond measure.
Friends, whatever else these words show, they show that the people know their salvation is entirely in God's hands, from start to finish. They even acknowledge that they haven't yet fully returned to God, and even as they cry, they know they can't even come back to God without God's help. Restore us to yourself, Lord, so that we may return. You do the work, Lord. We're incapable ourselves.
And the final verse, which does seem to have a sort of negative assumption about God, might be better understood as a total relinquishing of control to God's will. They know they've got no leg to stand on. They've got no justification for their actions or their attitudes in the past. They're like the tax collector in Luke — they stand before God and don't try to wheedle their way out of anything, simply crying: have mercy on us, for we are sinners.
And so Lamentations ends, not with any great resolution, but with a move in the right direction, as the people cry out in repentance and for God to remember and restore.
Why was Lamentations written, and what does it mean for us?
But as we close Lamentations, it's worth wondering: why is it here? It's a very hard, weighty book. Why was it written originally, and how does it apply to us now?
You've got to think — not only has someone gone through this ordeal, they've taken the time to craft five very long poems about what's happened. They've thought about this very carefully. And they haven't airbrushed the real ugly parts. If anything, the poetry serves to highlight and draw attention to how awful everything was. Why?
I want to suggest that the writer of Lamentations had at least two potential audiences in mind. It's clear from the reminder we saw from chapter 3 last week and the end of chapter 4 that even in the midst of this lament, the writer knew that the faithfulness of God to his own promises would prevail and that God would rescue his people. And so the first reason, I think, is to remind future readers that God is to be praised for his faithfulness and continued mercies in rescuing a people that really don't deserve it.
Now if that seems a little odd, let me give you a sort of backdrop for that. Psalm 102 is a lament which has an uncanny number of parallels to Lamentations. Its title is: A Prayer of an Afflicted Person Who Has Grown Weak and Pours Out a Lament Before the Lord. Does that sound familiar? And after a period of lament in the psalm, clearly expecting that God will one day rescue him, the psalmist writes: Let this be written for a future generation, that a people not yet created may praise the Lord. The lament expects an answer will come, and it wants future generations to know that it was God who rescued when the lament was heard — and so to praise him for it. That's at least one audience in mind.
However, there's likely a second. The writer, knowing as he does the track record of the forgetfulness of God's people, never wants them to forget the awfulness and the horror of what it looks like to face the judgment of the living God. He wants to remind them of what led them there — their own forgetfulness and their own sinfulness. He doesn't want his people to fall into the same trap again and to face those same consequences. It's a warning.
But from here — and I think precisely because the writer knows the persistent forgetfulness of the people — there may yet be another reason this lament was written. And we should keep in mind the somewhat nervous and uncertain endings of this book. I wonder if there's a deeper lament going on, one which really knows that something drastic is needed to break this cycle of God's people forgetting and rejecting him, only to cry out and require yet another rescue. Lamentations itself cries out for a final answer, because at this point in time there isn't one. It cries out for a final remedy.
And in the Old Testament, no final remedy is received. Yes, eventually Israel returned from exile and they rebuilt the city of Jerusalem and the temple. There are still a couple of remaining prophets and a semblance of a priesthood. But still no king, and God's presence does not dwell with his people in the temple that they rebuild. The picture you're left with is incomplete. It's unsatisfying and it's uncertain.
Jesus as the final answer to Lamentations
It doesn't change for nearly six centuries after Lamentations was written, when a little baby was born in Bethlehem, and his name was Jesus — who grew up to be the answer to all the problems repeated by God's people in the Old Testament, who we know as Christians to be God himself come down to provide the final remedy.
Jesus, who himself lamented over the city of Jerusalem for what it had yet again become. Jesus, who never failed nor sinned against God. Jesus, who suffered alongside and for his people. Jesus, who never failed his people as their leader, who became the only prophet who remained truly faithful to God's word and was obedient. Jesus, who became not just the priest who offered the perfect sacrifice but who was himself that very sacrifice, as he offered up himself to save his people from their sins. Jesus, who was raised from the dead to new life and ascended to the right hand of God in heaven to become king — a king who would never fail to uphold the justice of God, and who will one day return to judge not just Israel but the whole world. You, me, everyone. And not just those who are alive at the time he returns — every person who has ever lived.
Lamentations will get its justice. Acts 17:31, which we looked at a couple of weeks ago: God has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead. That is Jesus.
Two audiences today
And the Bible, since Jesus, is still preaching in many ways to the same two audiences from the time of Lamentations.
First, to those who don't know God, or who have forgotten God — maybe that's you today. Friends, don't be fooled into thinking that God's judgment isn't real, that his justice will not one day come. Don't underestimate the severity of what will happen. The New Testament tells us it is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, and Lamentations only scratches the surface of how terrible it will be to face that judgment when that day comes.
Now the first two chapters of Lamentations took an honest look at its own world, and I invite you to do the same. Look at the world around us, and it may surprise you when you look out and watch the news to note that while the horrors portrayed in the book of Lamentations are truly awful, the reality is that our world today is worse in so many ways. Wars and famine, poverty and devastation continue, but now on scales previously unimagined. This world is infected with a problem. And for all our educational systems, all our technological advances, all our modern sensibilities and sensitivities, the world isn't getting any better. Who knows — maybe AI will fix it. Maybe AI will build some robots and rid the world of all its problems. Hang on, I've seen that movie.
Lamentations took an honest look and knew what the real problem was two and a half thousand years before every AI movie ever made realised the same thing. The problem is us. Humanity is the problem. And while we might kid ourselves and think that if we try really hard we can turn things around, our own history is against us. Look honestly for yourself. There is no remedy that we can bring. It's so clear that we need a rescue from a source outside ourselves.
And friends, the Bible tells us the source of that salvation: it is God himself. The very one who will one day come in justice is the one who has brought salvation. He hasn't left us alone to deal with the consequences of our own actions forever. He came to us to save us in the person of Jesus.
Now how do we receive this salvation? Well, even before Jesus came, without knowing his name, Lamentations still knew how to receive the salvation of the Lord — which is not to fix it ourselves, because we can't, but to acknowledge and to repent that we are the problem, and to throw ourselves on the mercy of God and his salvation. It's just that now we know that salvation's name, and his name is Jesus.
So the invitation today to all who don't yet know the great mercies and goodness of God: have a look at the world, have a look at yourself, and then look and learn about what Jesus has done for you, and come to him to be saved. Cry out for God and his mercy, which can be found in Jesus and Jesus alone. That's the invitation. If you want to know more about it, ask someone around you who knows Jesus and who knows the goodness and finality of this glorious salvation.
And to you who know the salvation, to you who know that it has come — even more than the lamenter, you know the certainty of how it's been achieved and where it will end up. And yet the reality is we also often still know the struggles and trials of living in a world still suffering under the weight of sin. We're still broken people living in a broken reality. Lamentations still has a word for you.
It reminds us that in the middle of these difficult times, we don't have to pretend everything is okay when it's not. We don't have to pretend we like it when we don't. We don't need to pretend we understand it when we can't. We can still honestly look out at the world and ourselves and our own situation — even our own sin — and we can still cry out to God in any and every situation. That is the beauty of lament and Lamentations.
But we still wait for an ultimate justice. We still wait for every wrong to be righted. And so just as Lamentations ultimately looks forward, so do we. We look forward to the day when these trials and these sufferings will end, when Jesus comes back — when he will wipe away all our tears and there will be no more death, there will be no more mourning, there will be no more crying, there will be no more pain. That is a day to look forward to.
And so while we have this gracious space to cry out like Lamentations does in the midst of all the current trials and suffering, we can add a new cry — a cry which closes the Bible as it looks forward to that day. Because there's no nervous or uncertain ending for us, because we know the name and the certainty of the salvation to come. And so we cry: come, Lord Jesus.