Pastor Slaughter
Pentecost 7
June 30, 2024
Hope in the middle of Suffering!
Text: Lamentations 3:22-33
A WELS man had one too many drinks and thought he could drive home. He really had no reason being behind the wheel of that car that day. He ended up hitting a car and killing that little girl that was inside that vehicle. He is suffering the consequences for his actions. He is in prison and has to live with the guilt of that sin each day.
He loved his wife dearly. He spent countless nights in the hospital by her side during the cancer treatments. Eventually she went to a hospice facility and she died. She had strong faith and was ready to go to heaven but he wasn’t ready for her to go. After she died, he replaced going to church, by trying to find comfort by going to the grave.
We have these kind of experiences. We know people who are suffering. We ourselves might be in a similar boat and are experiencing suffering as well. So what do we make of all of it? Has God abandoned us? Is God against us? Is God vengeful or spiteful? Or can we see God’s mercy and faithfulness? Is there hope in the middle of our afflictions? The answer is yes. Suffering and impending death can focus our attention on what matters—The LORD’s compassion and salvation. Today we see Hope in the middle of suffering.
Jeremiah writes a poem about the suffering he and the people of Jerusalem are experiencing. Jeremiah was a faithful prophet for God. He repeatedly called Jerusalem to repentance. The nation was without excuse. Now it’s sins had brought the present terror from the Babylonians.
I can’t even fathom what it would have been like to have been Jeremiah during this time. To have repeatedly tried to call the people to repentance…to watch a majority of those living in Jerusalem being taken away into captivity, to see the temple God destroyed. And Jeremiah laments and writes this poem in acrostic format. Each section starts with a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet. It would be like saying the suffering he experienced from A-Z. He describes how he felt the Lord was against him, verse 1 “I am the man who has experienced affliction under the rod of his fury.” Through his preaching Jeremiah became an outcast, verse 14 “I was a laughingstock to all my people, the target of their song all day long.” It’s like Jeremiah had it and he cries out to God verse 17-18 “You deprived my soul of peace. I have forgotten what well-being is. I said, ‘My endurance has vanished, along with my hope from the LORD.”
Have you felt that way before? Feelings of anger, resentment, sorrow, hopelessness in the middle of your suffering? These feelings are natural and expected. And we have to wrestle with them. And that is what I love about the book of Lamentations. He writes how he feels. But in the middle of his suffering, he finds hope. He sees a purpose for it as he places his trust in God.
And we really see two kinds of sufferings here. Maybe you are like Jeremiah and the faithful believers during the time and the suffering you endure is not a direct result from your sin but from the sin of others. Going through a divorce because of the unfaithfulness of spouse. Suffering the affects of abuse from a parent or different relationship. Or just suffering from the affects of living in a sinful world. Like the aged believer with aches and pains all over. The faithful Christian who spent all his years serving and helping but now can’t get out of bed in a nursing home. Or the suffering we experience as someone we love dies like the Father in the Gospel lesson.
The other kind of suffering is caused by a direct result of our sin like the nation of Jerusalem who did not repent. Or we suffer from the consequences of our sin like that man who had too many drinks and got behind the wheel and is now in jail. It could be words spoken in anger and we suffer by loosing that friend. The list could go on.
When you experience suffering, how do you feel and what thoughts do those feelings lead too? When we experience suffering, we might be angry, or sad/depressed, overwhelmed, grief. In those movements when those feelings are the most intense, do you think that God is against you? That he is angry with you? Or maybe that isn’t loving, faithful, good nor kind? Instead vengeful and spiteful and mean?
Jeremiah wrestled with this questions as well. Just read through the first couple chapters of Lamentations and you will see his anguish. We do this too when we take our sufferings and turn to God in prayer and ask, “Why God? Why are you allowing me to go through this? Why did this happen? What good can from this?” During those moments people either turn away from God, or run closer to God.
Jeremiah turned to the LORD the God of free and faithful love. And he remembers his heart. Verse 32-33 “Even though he brings grief, he will show compassion on the basis of his great mercy. Certainly, it is not what his heart desires when he causes affliction, when he brings grief to the children of men.” It is not what his heart desires. God gave warning after warning and they refused to repent. It wasn’t God’s desire to cause affliction. But in love he had too.
I heard about a family that illustrates this point. The parents bailed their son out of jail numerous times for drug abuse. They finally sat down and came up with a contract with their son. If you mess up again, we will not bail you out. The phone call came from the jail. “This is officer so and so and you son is in jail. Here he is.” “I really messed up. I need you to bail me out. I promise I won’t do it again.” “I am sorry son we can’t” and they hung up the phone. It broke their hearts to do that but they had too. Otherwise, he would never repent and change his ways.
God did that with Jerusalem. He allow them to experience suffering to lead them to repentance. To show them that they needed her mercy and forgiveness. But sometimes God allows suffering in our lives, not as a call to repentances but to long for something better. I know someone who has it all. The coolest cars. A beautiful home. Goes on the best vacations. In the abundance of their blessings, they don’t see a need for God.
Sometimes God uses the sufferings in our lives to teach us not to place our hope in things or people, but to place our hope in God. Jeremiah encourages us, ”It is good to hope quietly for the salvation of the Lord. (v. 26)” The reason why we can hope in the Lord is because of his faithfulness. “By the mercies of the LORD we are not consumed, for his compassions do not fail. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.”
Jeremiah could look back and see how he was faithful to the promise he made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He could look back to the time of Moses where God preserved the nation as they were wondering in the wilderness because of their sin. We can look back on God’s faithfulness fulfilled in the mercy shown to us in Jesus. We see God’s faithfulness to his promise and sending his Son to experience suffering. Showing us the extent of his mercy by dying for us and then rising from the dead. This is what gives us hope. This is what God points us to… heaven!
My family in Christ, I am not God, and I can’t say why God allowed a particular suffering in your life. But what I can say is that God uses those sufferings to point us to his faithfulness, to his love, and to make us long for heaven where we don’t have to experience suffering any more. Place your hope in something that can never fail you. Something that is sure and certain. Something that is found in Jesus and is given freely. And say with Jeremiah, “It is good to hope quietly for the salvation of the LORD.”