Lamentations 1:2

She weeps bitterly in the night, with tears on her cheeks; among all her lovers she has none to comfort her; all her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they have become her enemies.

Verse one has told us about the great fall in Jerusalem's status - how she is now like a widow; how she is isolated. Verse two carries this theme of isolation and bereavement on, as well as adding some depth to her fall in status. She is pictured as weeping bitterly, again continuing the emphasis on the greatness of the tragedy. That is how disgraceful it is that God's city be conquered and destroyed by pagans. It also shows more of the reality of her fall from grace, as those who were once her allies ('lovers' and 'friends') have turned against her and left her alone. One the face of it this paints a simple picture of the sheer horror of the situation that Jerusalem is facing, and certainly it would have helped in creating empathy with a shocked and disillusioned people in exile. There is in this, though, the start of the real meat of this poem; that is, it begins to explain the reason for the situation Jerusalem has found herself in. It is not just saying how awful it is that she has been betrayed by those she trusted, deserted by those closest to her, but in fact it starts to turn to the shameful whoredom of Jerusalem in the run up to her fall.

To explore this further we need to think back over the right foreign policy that Israel was to have, compared to the reality of how she operated. Quite simply Israel was supposed to be a holy nation under God's unique kingship; this was a core element of the government of God's people. This separation was to create a unique and peculiar people - a people who stood out by their distinctive living pattern, characterised by obedience to God leading to a deep love of him, with every aspect of the national life reminding people of the great God who had brought them out of Egypt and settled them in the promised land. It was to be a land of worship and blessing; a nation that people would look at with jealousy, seeing the wonderful life that right relationship with God brings. As for Israel's foreign policy it was to be a distant policy, in a sense, not forging alliances with neighbouring nations, not adopting their customs or intermarrying. People were to join Israel, fitting into her God-given way of life; Israel was not to fit into the practices of outside nations. Israel was to rely totally on God's protection and guidance, not on the ruling methods and military protection of other nations. Israel rejected all this, choosing a human king and increasing alliances as they drifted from God. In fact Israel fell so low, as God allowed them, that they became a vassal. The period of time leading up to the fall of Jerusalem sees increasing attacks on Israel from her so-called friends, until eventually the Babylonians swooped in and crushed Jerusalem, dragging her people away to captivity.

The point is simple - Israel was not to have 'friends' or 'lovers' among the nations. She opened herself up and became corrupted by these pagan nations. The fact they turned against her and rejected her is hardly surprising, as history reminds us time and time again. Humanity is inherently disloyal and untrustworthy; especially compared to God. Jerusalem had prostituted herself out to the nations, her 'lovers' - she was, after all, only to have one lover, that is God himself. The book of Hosea makes this point fairly forcefully, as we see Hosea's marriage to the prostitute Gomer representing Israel's unfaithfulness to Yahweh. This point is ultimately made increasingly bluntly thoughout this poem, but the author is already looking to remind the people of their failings that led to their downfall.

Another interesting point to come out of this, quickly, is the relative power of gods. Take the days of the judges, for example, where God brought some incredible military victories. Those days must have seemed like ancient legends to the exiled Israelites. What they had done was exchanged their true God for false gods, adopting the pagan religious practices of the surrounding nations. God had turned his hand against Jerusalem and there was nothing that the gods Jerusalem had whored herself to could do. Such is life still. Where do we put our trust? To whom do we ally ourselves? What brings us our security in life? Nothing has really changed for those who put their trust in Yahweh - this remains the only sensible place to seek security. This almost certainly won't mean that those who oppose us are crushed (yet), but it does mean that the eternal battle for our soul is secured; our future is secured by the cross. If the church is the bride of Christ, then we must certainly avoid prostituting ourselves to the surrounding culture; avoid taking on the values and priorities of the world.

So, Jerusalem is left alone and bitterly weeping. Deserted by her 'lovers', betrayed by her 'friends'. How pathetic she is. Jerusalem is like a girl who has gone out seeking security, love, popularity, acceptance. Like a girl who has tried to find those things by chasing the things of the world that seem so desirable: by partying; by sleeping around; by ignoring her values to try and fit in. She has received nothing that isn't part and parcel of that life she chose. Do not try to imagine Jerusalem as some unfortunate victim, who has suffered at the hands of a neglectful God, two-faced friends, and unfaithful lovers. That is not what this is. She is like a girl who finds herself diseased, hated, used, alone - a girl who sold herself to the cool seeming kids, but ended up used up and lying in a pool of her vomit. She is a disgusting mess, not some unfortunate deserving pity. It is from here that we get the right understanding of what this kind of prostitution to the surrounding culture achieves. It is from here that we can form a right response. We will continue to see these themes played out over the remaining twenty verses, and ultimately we will see how the author seeks to help the people in exile respond rightly to this self-made catastrophe.

Christian celebrities

My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don't show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, "Here's a good seat for you," but say to the poor man, "You stand there" or "Sit on the floor by my feet," have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? James 2:1-4

James gives us a useful warning here about the way we treat others, and I think for a lot of us it is probably a relevant warning. When I was at university, in my church student study group, we were talking about the way in which we often viewed other Christians as 'better' than ourselves whilst seeing ourselves as failing. One person brought up an example of how when he had been a student there was a 'in-crowd' who were 'friends' with the previous student worker. He remembered wanting to be part of that group because they were the best Christians, or something along those lines. Despite my poor retelling of that story, we probably all see something we recognise in there. There is a way in which we can easily build up a ranking table of the Christians we know based on who we think is great and who is not. This is also something that is quite apparent in the way certain Christians, both locally and globally, are viewed or spoken about. I remember hearing another student say how great guys like Calvin were, and how far beyond anything we're capable of they must have been. I can't help but feel that this is somewhat missing the point.

Clearly we can be doing better or worse in our Christian walks in our many different ways - it is easy (and maybe fun) to think of some examples for this. The point, though, is that we can all too easily start building some people up in much the same way we do celebrities. Our view of them focuses not on how we can follow their example in following Christ, but on how awesome the things they have done is. It turns towards worshipping people, who afterall can only do these things through the gifts and grace given to them by Christ. It is interesting to see the people who are most popular in a church environment - it so often seems to be based on how their Christian life seems to be going. It is understandable that certain characters within a church will be needed by many members of the church regarding issues that they oversee (such as leadership, youth work, etc.), but so often there seems to be a desire to be on good terms with the big players in a church and little interest in the everyday folk. A lot of interest in the guy who preaches frequently and has just written a best-selling book, but little interest in the awkward, shy person who put up the coat racks and painted the doors. Again on a more global scale there seems to be a real excitement about watching a few random video clips of some famous preacher, not so much in hearing a full series from a local accountant who speaks in our church occasionally.

The reason I included the quote from James is that I think he is talking about this sort of issue as he urges us, "don't show favouritism". The man in fine clothes may well be something different to us: a top worship leader; someone very funny; the beautiful person; our pastor; or almost anything else. The poor man is invariably going to be the person we struggle to notice, or would rather not have to deal with. Perhaps it is reading too far into this, but I think it is a fair point, that the saddest part of this is how superficial the criteria is. I have met people wearing very expensive clothes, who have then proved to have little else attractive about them; similarly I have met some people who have nothing, yet are wonderful to talk to. We are not as Christians given a free licence to pick and choose who we favour, who we give our time to, on our criteria. Without Christ we are all nothing and have nothing, and it is only with Christ that there is anything of lasting value in any of us. To start using our own personal criteria to decide who we seek out on a Sunday morning is to ignore any notion of church unity.

My real point is very simple. We need to be careful about how we are viewing our Christian heroes; we mustn't start idolising them. And we need to be open-minded, patient, loving, and outward looking in who we look to talk to on a Sunday morning (for example); being willing to welcome anyone in to the church family, whatever our first impression of them may be. Once we start showing favouritism we make two fatal errors: i) we exclude people from the church, and ii) we start to form little cliques that divide rather than unify the church. Let's not 'discriminate among ourselves and become judges with evil thoughts'.

Lamentations 1:1

Lamentations is an interesting book, possibly authored by Jeremiah (although nobody knows for sure) and containing five poems mourning the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians. It is not a book traditionally associated with joy, but is well worth while studying as it shows us the way to respond to times of utter bleakness and desolation. The people of Jerusalem had turned away from God, as is frequently mentioned in Lamentations, and thus fallen under his judgment. Lamentations brings a response to exiled people who doubtless felt distant from and abandoned by God. Lamentations 1:1 opens up the book by showing us the huge contrast that had been the result of God's wrath being turned on Jerusalem. A quick look through Joshua to 2 Kings provides the background for this book: in Joshua and Judges we frequently see powerful victories won by God (much like the in the exodus from Egypt); the monarchy then begins in 1 & 2 Samuel, continuing into 1 & 2 Kings, with the disobedient kingship of Saul setting the pattern for what follows in a sense; through 1 & 2 Kings we see continual patterns of disobedience, ultimately leading to the gradual decline of Israel into a divided and weak nation. Lamentations is speaking to a people for whom the tales of God's great victories over Israel's enemies are just stories from the past; for whom the idea of Israel as a land of blessing living under God's rule is an alien concept; and for whom the oppression suffered by the Israelites in Egypt has become a reality again. Lamentations contains several powerful messages for us: about the severity of God's response to sin; about the way we should respond when God seems to have abandoned us; and about the results of idolising the surrounding culture. Over a long series of posts I will slowly work through Lamentations trying to unpack it a little, and hopefully be helpful in seeing what is going on.

How isolated sits the city that was full of people! How like a widow has she become, she who was great among the nations! She who was a princess among the provinces has become a slave.

Lamentations opens with this bleak appraisal of Jerusalem's fallen state. Jerusalem is personified as a woman here; a woman in a sad and lonely situation. We are told how she was before: she was "full of people"; "great among the nations"; and "a princess among the provinces". This is what was mentioned earlier - Jerusalem had been the centre of a powerful and victorious nation, with God at her head defeating all who opposed her. Jerusalem was the city of David, or the city of God; formerly named Jebus, she was captured by David when he become king, and became the capital of Israel. She was a city belonging to the whole nation, not just one tribe. Jerusalem was the religious centre of Israel, with the temple that Solomon had built standing there; before this the ark of the covenant had moved from place to place in Israel. It was the political centre of Israel; where the king was, but again where God's dwelling place was. In the wilderness the camp was organised around the tabernacle, symbolising the way God was at the centre of life and the centre of command; Israel had been organised this way, with Jerusalem at the centre of life. Jerusalem genuinely had been great at one point. Arguably the highlight of life in the promised land came early in the reign of Solomon: he had asked God for wisdom to rule; Jerusalem was viewed as a great nation, as seen by the visit of the Queen of Sheba; and the temple had been built - the house of God. Up to this point Jerusalem did not rely on foreign allies, or on human weaponry, but on God. This ideal had already started to be eroded though - the clamour of the people for a human king showed a lack of trust in God's kingship. This lack of trust continued to deepen, as Israel divided into two nations, built up foreign allies, and adopted foreign gods. It is this decline that is summed up here in blunt and non-accusatory terms.

At the time of writing Jerusalem was a broken and burnt out city. She had fallen to become a vassal for many years, now had fallen further as the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and dragged her people away into slavery. Jerusalem had been rejected by her so-called allies, and left by God to suffer at the hands of her enemies. This is brought out in depth over the rest of this chapter though. The reason for this start to Lamentations is probably to draw the hearers in. It is purely factual and brings a mournful, not accusatory tone. The author later draws out the reasons for Jerusalem's destruction, but to start with the hearer is shown empathy. This start shows the hearer that the author has a genuine and deep concern for the fall of Jerusalem: there is a instant recognition of the greatness and sadness of the fall. There is the contrast between greatness and isolation; between royalty and slavery. This is married with the imagery of bereavement; Jerusalem is portrayed as a lonely woman in mourning. This beginning to Lamentations sets the tone for what will come; the author genuinely does see this as a terrible tragedy. For the city of God to fall to pagans and for the people of God to be dragged off into slavery is truly a terrible thing. This tone remains throughout Lamentations, although the reasons for the real tragedy of the situation are perhaps not those which the hearer may initially expect. As this chapter continues we will see more of the tragedy of the fall of Jerusalem, and also where the author is trying to take his audience. It is a journey that reminds us of the reality of God's judgment, and shows us how to rightly respond to this.

Rebel to the core

One thing that often makes me chuckle is when people react with anger to the idea of hidden speed cameras, or in fact speed cameras in general. The idea that someone is spying on us waiting to catch us out is something that riles most of us, probably because that is how we view it. It make me chuckle because it is such a silly reaction really; it essentially just boils down to "I don't like it when someone catches me doing something wrong, which really I want to do". I chuckle, though I have to admit I am not immune to it. There is a similar reaction to, say, being behind a police car on the road; the same kind of dislike of being watched, although in this case when we aren't doing anything wrong. The expectation that we are about to be pulled over for something we do all the time without even thinking about it, that really we shouldn't be doing. I get that a lot, although I suspect it has much less foundation to it than I believe at the time. I think these attitudes remind of two things about us as humans:

1. 
   
   We like to break rules. The reason we hate the idea of someone watching us is that deep down we know we run a real risk of being caught, because we know we will be breaking the rules. The reason we then get angry is that we want to be able to go on breaking the rules. The hatred of any authority beyond our own is something inbuilt to humanity, and is exactly the attitude that creates sin. The refusal to accept God's total authority over our lives leads to us happily finding ways to ignore him and write him off.
2. 
   
   Deep down we know that we are utterly rebellious. Deep down we know that everything we do is tainted by selfish ambitions and desires, and these attitudes manifest themselves almost constantly in rebellion: against any authorities over us, and ultimately against God.

Now, nothing is ever as clear cut in our lives as that, but those attitudes do seem to run deep in people; certainly in me. It is those attitudes that show why we are so utterly helpless when we stand in judgment before God. We have rebelled against him, and forfeited our right to know him; and we are unable to break out of the pattern of rebellion that cut us off from him. This is what we typically call 'freedom'. This is what the Bible calls being dead. This is where we all stand under our own power: rebel to the core.

Merry Easter?

So here it is, merry Easter, everybody's having fun. Look to the future now, it's only just begun...

We're hardly inundated with Easter songs. We spend only a fraction celebrating Easter that we do Christmas. We certainly don't have an 'Easter eve'. We don't even have an Easter version of Santa. Overall it seems fair to say that the way Easter is celebrated tends to be far more muted that Christmas. Should we be surprised though?

Clearly to the Christian there is much more to be excited by at Easter, but in a secular society there is much less appeal in the Easter story. At Christmas we have angels, a baby born in a manger, shepherds, and wise men. At Easter we have a man brutally executed, we have a claim of resurrection from the dead, and we have the utterly offensive claim underlying this: that we humans have got ourselves into a mess from which we cannot extract ourselves. That our flat-out rebellion against God has earnt us a fair wage of death and eternal separation from God under his judgment. That we have been judged unworthy of life, but that God himself subjected himself to the hands of us rebels, willing offering up his life in our place to give us the hope of reconciliation to God. Hardly an idea that sits comfortably with us.

So, as we enjoy another Easter Sunday, let us remember the true significance of Easter, in amongst all the eggs (chocolate). That some 2000 years ago a tomb was found empty, save for some folded grave clothes, and that its occupant (Jesus) was gone and alive. That is by far the most important fact in history, and it is why Easter is the most significant holiday we have.

Examming it

Having finished my Old Testament 1 exam last night, it just reminds me what a vast amount there is to be gleaned from any Bible passage. The amount I had to write on just a couple of themes running through one book of sixty six, and that based on imparted knowledge rather than my own deep understanding, suggests as much. It helps me understand just a little bit more how someone can devote their entire life to Bible study, yet still come away with areas unexplored and questions unanswered: a surprisingly inexhaustable supply of study, with a taste of the sheer depth and infinity of God's character.

Of course, the other thing I was reminded of is just how fun it is writing about the Bible. Once again I found the time (two and a half hours) just flew by, and I finished with a real positive sense of joy, rather than the usual exhaustion that follows an exam that long. It continually surprises me how little time I really spend in study, compared to the joy it brings. One of the greatest bizarrities of the human life is of course the way we continue to be so thoroughly unable to do what we want to; a sad indictment of the way we really grasp freedom. Hopefully I can use this as a spur to bounce myself into more joyful study and, in particular, writing it up (part of the aim of this blog). I'm sure I'll see the effects of that effort soon enough...

"I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not
do, but what I hate I do." Romans 7:15