July 6, 2012 – Lamentations 1

While you are reading this, I get an image of a line or refugees being led out of a city.  At the crest of a hill, the author turns around to see what is left of the city they are leaving.  It is a waste, still on fire, smoke rising up, possibly still able to hear the screams of those that are still left behind.  He looks upon his home and remembers what it once was and what it is now and writes these chapters.  When you have that image in your mind, think of all the people that have made that walk and how we think of them differently based on the context. 

This story is the refugee of Jerusalem in the exile.  What about the refugee from Jerusalem in 70 AD when Rome destroys the city.  That Jew is part of a group that killed Jesus and that destruction was foretold by Him.  Do you we think he is turning to God and confessing his sins and accepting for what has happened.  What about the refugee of Rome when the Barbarians came.  The French refugee leaving after Napoleon is defeated; The Nazi refugee leaving a smoldering Berlin after the defeat of Hitler.  Our image of the refugee leaving the burning city can be altered dramatically based on the context.  Sometimes we sympathize with the refugee.  Sometimes we cheer the man with the gun who is pushing the march.  We must look beyond the image to what is in the heart of the refugee.  What are they thinking?  In these chapters, there is remorse for the sins that have brought this on.  There is a call for retribution by God, but only after acceptance that what is happening is just.  I don’t think we could say the same for what is in the heart of the Nazi walking away from the burning Berlin. 

And what is in the heart of the American as he crest the hill looking down on a smoldering America.  I don’t think we are there yet, but our country is in a decline and we have not pulled the nose up yet.  There appears no real end in sight and, in fact, decisions are being made that are driving us faster into the abyss.  What will be in the hearts of those that look down on what is left of our great nation.  Will there be remorse for the sins we have done or will there still be defiant arrogance that our way was still the best, that the world is still our master, that God has no place in the way we should live.  I wonder?