Thu, 24 August, 2006: Today’s Bible readings.

Lamentations 1:1-5

¹ How lonely 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.

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.

³ Judah has gone into exile because of affliction
and hard servitude;
she dwells now among the nations,
but finds no resting place;
her pursuers have all overtaken her
in the midst of her distress.

⁴ The roads to Zion mourn,
for none come to the festival;
all her gates are desolate;
her priests groan;
her virgins have been afflicted,
and she herself suffers bitterly.

⁵ Her foes have become the head;
her enemies prosper,
because the LORD has afflicted her
for the multitude of her transgressions;
her children have gone away,
captives before the foe.

Jeremiah writes the book of Lamentations after having lived through the horrors of the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem. The majority of the people either died of disease and famine from the siege, were killed by the Babylonian army, or were carried into captivity. Jerusalem was looted and burned. The walls were broken down, and it was left a ruins. Jeremiah pens his lamentations over the devastation of Israel, mourning for the loss of all that was.

But why did this happen? What is the cause of the ruin of the people of Israel?

God did it. The LORD has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions. All the death and destruction is the result of their own sin.

What do we learn from this?

Sin is serious. God hates sin and will not tolerate it. We tend to think that sin isn’t serious. To us, disobedience to God’s word is no big deal. Sin is just a “mistake” or an “error in judgment”. When we sin, we can easily write it off because “we’re only human”, and of course, “nobody’s perfect”. After all, there are so many rules in the Bible. We do our best to keep most (or some) of them, and that should count for something.

But we see in scripture that God’s attitude to sin is not lax. Sin must be punished. Sin will be punished. The people of Israel had flaunted God’s law for so long that He brought about the destruction of their nation at the hands of the Babylonians. Sin is serious.

Where is Christ in this passage?

God must punish sin. He can not ignore sin or sweep it under a rug and pretend the sin never happened. He must punish all sin.

Why did God take up human flesh and come to earth in the person of Jesus Christ? Why did the Second Person of the Trinity become incarnate? Because God must punish sin. He came because that is the only way that God could punish sin and still accept sinful people into His presence.

Jesus Christ took the guilt of all the people who will come to Him in faith, and He paid the price for those sins upon the cross. He atoned for the guilt of their sins, so they don’t have to. He justifies all who come to Him in faith so that they can stand before Him. Because of the work of Jesus Christ on their behalf, God declares them to be righteous. Their sin has been paid for and they stand before Him dressed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. God’s grace is an amazing thing, that sinful people can be accepted because of His great work on their behalf.

But think for a moment: The fact that God the Father would send His Son to die such a painful death on the cross demonstrates how much God hates sin. In order to save His people, the Father had to vent all His wrath for their sin upon His own Son. That is how bad sin is and how seriously God takes sin. Sin is not a mistake. It isn’t a slip up. Sin isn’t something we can indulge ourselves in, knowing that God will forgive us.