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Week 04

Red Couch Theology

Sermon Conversations with Alex and Aaron

There’s only so much we can cover in a Sunday morning gathering!
Each week, you’re invited to tune into our podcast at 11 am on Thursdays – recorded (and sometimes prerecorded) for later, online viewing.

What can you expect? Pastors Alex, Aaron, and the occasional guest having a casual conversation, diving deeper into ideas related to last Sunday’s teaching.

Ask Questions about the Sermon Series, Between You and Me – “Navigating Your Relationships”
by texting 720-316-3893 prior to, or during the “LIVE” Thursday podcast.

Blog sites:

Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCWnNSTN-6XA7oYy6TBfS0LAxqxPvxVjH

Apple Podcast:  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/guys-drinking-tea/id1616539767 

Red Couch Theology2023-05-07T00:11:05-06:00

A Particularly Revolutionary Imperative

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church—30 for we are members of his body. 31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” 32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. Ephesians 5:25-33

Paul begins with this directive to husbands: “love your wives”. Love is such a broad term in English. It can mean so many things, and it can range from “I love my God”, to “I love my new boots”, or “I love fish and chips”! All might be true! And yet, we instinctively understand that there are very different meanings behind those statements. When Paul says “Husbands love your wives”, our instinctive reading before his later elaboration is probably along the lines of some romantic poetry – something perhaps like a sonnet by Shakespeare.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach.
(Victorian Poet, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Sonnet 43”)

While Paul’s world is not the one of 17th or 19th centuries romantic poets, we do have evidence that affection between couples was alive and well in the time of Paul. Pliny the Younger writes to his wife, “It is incredible how much I miss you, first of all because I love you, but then because we are not used to being apart.”

Reading in this way “husbands love your wives” was not a particularly revolutionary imperative. If anything, Paul’s commands fit in perfectly with the cultural pattern of his day. Husbands would provide food and housing and security as their demonstration of love and wives would respond by submitting to their husbands in gratitude for their care. Together the two would provide each other with children, an important part of life.

However, there is more in Paul’s mind than just emphasizing normal societal expectations. Lurking under the surface of our English Bibles is Paul’s Greek word choice. He chooses to use the word Agape for love. The Greek language had at least four words for love, so if Paul wanted to ask for romantic love, he could easily use the word Eros. But he intends to ask for more – Agape is such a rare word that for many years scholars believed Christians like Paul created it. It appeared in so few other places. It was used to describe the highest form of love – sacrificial love – and certainly not used for something like “I love my new boots”! The New Testament is the only place in literature where this word is used in a household code.

In what remains of chapter 5, Paul describes the relationship between a husband and wife as being reflective of Jesus’ love for us, his church. In the same way that Jesus surrendered for our sakes, husbands are called to surrender themselves for their wives. This is revolutionary in any century, but particularly so in the first century AD. If Paul were to be consistent with his day, he would ask the wife to sacrifice for her husband, “her head”. But he turns social convention upside down by asking those with privilege “to surrender” it. In doing so, he changes the definition of what “masculinity” really was and is. In the Roman world, authority and masculinity were almost synonymous. A freeman would exercise authority over slaves, women and children, and by doing that, show his masculinity. The “way of Jesus” invites every believer to lay aside privilege, to pick up their cross and look for an eternal reward.

  • Paul tells us that Jesus modeled this love on the cross. Where else do you see Jesus model surrender of his authority? (Chapter and verse?)
  • How do you wrestle with a need to receive honor in this world? How does it affect your ability to appear as a servant?
  • In what ways do you long for authority? How do you want people to recognise your authority?
  • How can you choose to serve those whose status might place beneath you on social scales? Some examples might be: Children, employees, volunteers.
A Particularly Revolutionary Imperative2023-05-08T14:27:27-06:00

Instruction to Wives

Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Ephesians 5:22-24 NIV

Christian wives of all classes, cultures, and centuries have taken these words to heart since the Holy Spirit inspired the Apostle Paul to write them to wives in the Church in Ephesus nearly 2,000 years ago. Over much of Church history, Christian wives and their husbands have most often understood the above verses as an unequivocal command. Even so, wives careful to observe this command have worked it out in a variety of ways. Likewise, husbands have been eager to evaluate their wives’ efforts. In addition, these three verses have even been used to imply that all women are subject to all men. Whew!

In my lifetime, the status of women has grown in Western culture. As a result, Christians with high regard for scripture have been prompted to examine this passage more closely. Some choose to stand firm in the straightforward interpretation. Others have brought in scriptures that provide nuance to those interpretations, enabling God’s grace to soften the tone.

Regardless of your approach to Paul’s strong guidance for wives in verses 22-24, his language is equally robust in its full context (Ephesians 5:20-33 NIV). When both husbands and wives set aside their feelings to surrender their prerogatives to Christ, this passage provides a reliable rudder for marriage stability whether spouses are navigating smooth or choppy waters.

Elsewhere Paul implies that Christ’s honor is at stake in Christian marriage. Therefore the specific directive to wives to submit to their husbands should not accommodate a husband’s blatant disobedience to the Word of God or require tolerance of undeniable abuse. In such situations, a wife must obey the Word of God in confronting her husband’s demands to the contrary. In certain circumstances, Godly support or intervention from other wise Christians may be advisable.

The intention of these verses is to frame a picture of the love, blessings, and security that are possible in Biblical marriages and families. God invites each husband and wife to join him in painting a Godly and personalized picture of their marriage. Like all passages of scripture, verses 22-24 must be understood in their immediate context as well as the entirety of scripture. Our forever goal is to grow in our familiarity with the character of Jesus and bring glory to his name.

Many resources are available to address the weighty concerns that have grown up around misinterpretations of verses 22-24. Have patience that the Lord will instruct you as you keep researching these scriptures. Be gracious to and pray for those who struggle in their marriages. Be aware of confusion around this issue (that exists for more than a few contemporary Christians), as you read this article by former faith deconstructionist Sarabeth Caplin.

Instruction to Wives2023-05-06T23:51:56-06:00

Putting Others’ Needs First

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Ephesians 5:21 NIV

My husband and I had a beautiful wedding ceremony in which we promised almost 34 years ago to honor God in our marriage relationship. In Paul’s letter to the Ephesian church, he writes of the mystery and beauty of Christian marriage. The section of Paul’s letter addressing marriage is found in a larger section that describes various relationships and practical ways we can live the Christian life when we are filled with the Holy Spirit. In fact, Ephesians 5:18 is a command, “be filled with the Spirit”; then Paul gives us ways to demonstrate that filling,

Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Ephesians 5:19-21 NIV

We can only submit to one another – yield our own rights to another – if we believe in Christ and are filled with his Holy Spirit. Mutual submission – putting another person’s needs, wants and desires before our own — does not come natural to us as humans. But as we learn to submit ourselves to Christ, we can learn to submit to others as well.

Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,… Ephesians 5:22-25 NIV

In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church–for we are members of his body. Ephesians 5:28-30 NIV

In a Christian marriage, wives are to submit to their husbands – to choose to yield their rights to their husbands as they would yield to Christ. Submission is not the same as blind obedience. In Christian marriage, husbands are to love their wives as he loves his own body and as Christ loved the church. Jesus gave up His rights as deity to come to earth as a baby, to live on earth as a human, and then to die a horrific, painful death of a criminal. Jesus did this because of His great love for us, His church. Husbands are asked to sacrifice in love for their wives in the same way Christ did for us. So, the devotion husbands are asked to display in a marriage relationship is a “higher calling” than even a wife’s call to submit.

If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death–even death on a cross! Philippians 2:1-8 NIV

The mystery of Christian marriage is that it is both a picture of how much Christ loves the church as well as describing the union of a man and a woman as a new family. Paul writes similar instructions in his letter to the Colossians. Read Colossians 3:1-4:6 and notice the similarities to Ephesians 5:18-6:4. Pray and ask God to show you what you need to know and understand about putting another person’s needs before your own desires.

Putting Others’ Needs First2023-05-06T23:36:13-06:00

Christian Marriage: A Revolutionary Design

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing[b] her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church—for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”[c] This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
Ephesians 5:21-33

This passage has often been used as a blueprint for gender roles in Christian marriage. It has also been used to reinforce preexisting cultural norms, rather than subjecting those norms to biblical scrutiny. In my opinion, these approaches do not capture just how revolutionary this passage is meant to be for Christian marriage. If we can get some distance from how this passage applies to us and just take the time to think about what Paul is saying, we may be more receptive to its message. I believe one way we can get a fresh start is to think about how different Paul’s view of marriage was for an audience in the Ancient World.

In both Ancient Roman and Jewish marriages, husbands ruled over their homes. In Roman marriage, men controlled the property. Men had absolute control over children and, to a lesser extent, their wives. Households were “under” the husband’s “hand. In Jewish marriages men controlled the family and were “lord” and “master” of the house. The wife was expected to “help” him by providing children. The will of the husband was binding on the whole family.

Marriage based on Mutual Submission: Marriage in the Ancient world was based on fixed gender roles that wives and husbands played, Paul begins this passage on a very different note — a call to mutual submission. Submission is an attitude rather than a formula or set of rules to follow. Submission is such a loaded word — to me, anyway, it connotes: setting aside one’s free will and good judgment. I wonder if this passage would make more sense if “submit to one another” was replaced with “serve one another”.

Marriage based on love:  Paul then goes on to zoom in on what “submission” means for a husband, and that is to love his wife. I wonder if this is Paul’s instruction for men in the Ancient world as a correction for the cultural view that a man was to “rule” his household. Rather than being something like the CEO of his home, a Christian husband was being told to act with love:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. I Corinthians 13:4-7 NIV

Marriage based on respect:  I once attended a seminar called “Love and Respect”. The premise was that Paul commanded men to love their wives because love is what wives need. Similarly, he commanded that wives respect their husbands. That didn’t make sense to me because men and women both need love and respect. I have an alternative idea. What if Paul commands wives to respect their husbands because that was not a trait that Ancient marriage cultivated? If men had the absolute right to rule their homes, I can imagine that wives had very little incentive to be respectful — except as they were forced to be.

Marriage that’s “All In”:  Ancient Roman and Jewish marriages involved conforming to traditional norms. Christian marriage involved a spiritual dimension that required action based on thought and inward reflection. Paul is not creating a checklist of duties for marriage partners; this passage requires much more.

Application: Compare your view of marriage to the Roman, Jewish, and Christian standards. What can you learn about yourself?

Christian Marriage: A Revolutionary Design2023-05-07T16:52:38-06:00

Red Couch Theology

Sermon Conversations with Alex and Aaron

There’s only so much we can cover in a Sunday morning gathering!
Each week, you’re invited to tune into our podcast at 11 am, on Thursdays – also recorded for later, online viewing.

What can you expect? Pastors Alex, Aaron, and the occasional guest having a casual conversation, diving deeper into ideas related to last Sunday’s teaching.

Ask Questions about the Sermon, “Imagery from Jeremiah” – A Lenten Sermon Series,
by texting 720-316-3893 prior to, or during the “LIVE” Thursday podcast
.

Blog sites:

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCWnNSTN-6XA7oYy6TBfS0LAxqxPvxVjH

Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/guys-drinking-tea/id1616539767

Red Couch Theology2023-03-22T19:24:30-06:00

Lament – the Road to Surrender

During this Lenten season, we’ve been looking at the calamitous prophecies of Jeremiah. The persistent and ungrateful rejection of God and his ways by the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem made it impossible for them to escape impending disaster. This week our focus has been Jeremiah 6-9.

As a parallel to Jeremiah’s lament, I’ve been thinking about Jesus’ week-long “Road to Jerusalem”. Matthew 23 contains Jesus’ intense rebuke of religious leaders during that time frame. It begins:

…woe to you, experts in the law and you Pharisees, hypocrites!

Jesus ended his assessment of these leaders with this lament:

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’” Matthew 23:37-39 ESV

He used the same words during that week with different additions in these laments, Luke 13:33-35 and Luke 19:41-44.

Jesus made many pointed overtures to these religious leaders during and prior to his public ministry. Their acceptance of Jesus as the longed for Messiah should have begun at Luke 2:46-47. They should have appreciated and pursued the twelve year old prodigy for his unmistaken understanding and answers to life’s most profound questions. Instead they ignored and persecuted him.

The rejection of Jesus’ messages, miracles, and the leaders’ disdain of his rightful claim for the worship from all mankind, is at the core of all lament. Let’s try to enter into the deep sadness God endures as humans reject his words, care, and support.

Look at Jesus’ final lament (Matthew 23:37-39) before his surrender to the ordeal of the Cross. Recall the catastrophic second fall of Jerusalem and demolition of the second temple – just as Jesus sorrowfully foretold in his Luke 19:41-44 lament above.

Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together,
against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying,
“Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.” Psalm 2:1-3 ESV

  • Lament the brokenness of the world around us.
  • Lament your own brokenness.
  • Let it soak in that: rejection of Jesus’ sacrifice and message is deeply personal to him.
  • BONUS PRACTICE: Read or listen to Psalm 85 as you pray for the hope of restoration of future generations, asking the Holy Spirit to move hearts to surrender fully to him for fulfillment of his promises.
Lament – the Road to Surrender2023-03-19T14:57:38-06:00

A Case for Lament

Oh, that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears!
I would weep day and night for the slain of my people.  Jeremiah 9:1 NIV

This is what the Lord Almighty says:
“Consider now! Call for the wailing women to come; send for the most skillful of them.
Let them come quickly and wail over us till our eyes overflow with tears and water streams from our eyelids.

The sound of wailing is heard from Zion:
‘How ruined we are! How great is our shame!
We must leave our land because our houses are in ruins.’ ”

Now, you women, hear the word of the Lord; open your ears to the words of his mouth.
Teach your daughters how to wail; teach one another a lament.
Death has climbed in through our windows and has entered our fortresses;
it has removed the children from the streets and the young men from the public squares.  Jeremiah 9:17-21 NIV

The kind of lament described above, isn’t familiar to most of us in this country. Until I researched it, I didn’t know that people (usually women, in certain cultures), were trained to be lamenter/wailers. They were to be available to grieve with people who had experienced loss of something or someone.

For many of us, it is hard to freely express our grief openly. I have been grateful for this church community and the help I’ve received during a number of deaths in my family. I am also grateful for books I have been given and for support groups that are available, to enable people to share in each other’s griefs and struggles. I could have used help with more than one loss, particularly when I was a child.

I’ve mentioned before that because of a physical illness that our parents had (which meant that we had to be isolated from them periodically), my sister and I were moved around among different family members a number of times from our infancy on. Sometimes these moves included my younger sister and me, but sometimes, we were split up to live with different sides of the family. I am fourteen months older than my sister, and it was easier for some of the relatives to have us one at a time rather than together.

Our father died when I was four and my sister was three. When our mother got well, we were moved to live with her, her sister and their mother in New Mexico.

When I was 10, our mother got sick again. In the spring of 1953, because it was easier to isolate one of us while our grandmother was nursing Mom, my sister remained in New Mexico, and I was sent to live with our father’s sister and her husband in Denver,.

I turned 11 in August of 1953 and Mom died in November. We had been getting progress reports via daily postcards up until the phone rang at 9:30 one night, I remember saying, “Mom’s gone!”. I couldn’t cry for weeks. My aunt wasn’t very concerned, but my uncle was, and he resorted to a ruse to help me.

My aunt in New Mexico had sent a card with a $5.00 bill in it. There had been 2 of them in Mom’s purse. My sister and I each got one. I saved mine for weeks. My uncle rushed in one morning and asked if he could borrow it as he needed to pay the paper boy. I gave it to him, but said that it was the last thing I had from Mom. I started to cry, and cried for a long time that day. After that, every time I started to cry, my aunt would ask, “What are you blubbering about?” or threaten me with, ”I’ll give you something to cry about!” I learned to stuff my grief around everybody.

I still am more apt to cry for joy than for my own grief. I am learning that Jesus shares my sorrow and that he is safe to cry with.

Do any of you reading this relate? Ponder Matthew 5:4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” I recommend Darrell W. Johnson’s book, The Beatitudes: Living in Sync with the Reign of God.

A Case for Lament2023-03-18T23:53:59-06:00

No Balm in Gilead

Chapters 8 and 9 in Jeremiah in are difficult to read. Jeremiah continues to tell the people of their sin, but the people continue to act as if all is well – they do not see a need to repent or change their ways. Imagine a small animal that has had its stomach completely ripped open by a predator, and someone comes along and puts a small Band-Aid designed to cover a scraped knee onto this gaping bleeding wound. Do you get the picture? Can you grasp how a Band-Aid would be completely inadequate to heal the wound inflicted on this poor animal? In Jeremiah 8:11 this is the picture the prophet is trying to make clear to the people of Judah.

They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. “Peace, peace,” they say, when there is no peace. Jeremiah 8:11

Jeremiah has walked the streets of Jerusalem looking for anyone who is righteous or honest. He tells us what he has found instead.

From the least to the greatest, all are greedy for gain; prophets and priests alike, all practice deceit. Jeremiah 8:10b NIV

Are they ashamed of their loathsome conduct? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush. So they will fall among the fallen; they will be brought down when they are punished, says the LORD. Jeremiah 8:12 NIV

The wound of the people of Judah is not a physical, bleeding one – at this time. The siege, the sword, and the famine are still in Judah’s not too distant future. No – the wound Jeremiah was speaking of was a spiritual one. Judah had turned away from their one true God, had embraced, followed, and worshiped other gods, who had no power to save them, to help them, or to even listen to them (as these were simply made of wood and stone).

Jeremiah describes his own and God’s lament over Judah’s sin in these verses.

O my Comforter in sorrow, my heart is faint within me.
Listen to the cry of my people from a land far away:
“Is the LORD not in Zion? Is her King no longer there?”
“Why have they provoked me to anger with their images, with their worthless foreign idols?”
“The harvest is past, the summer has ended, and we are not saved.”
Since my people are crushed, I am crushed; I mourn, and horror grips me.
Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there?
Why then is there no healing for the wound of my people? Jeremiah 8:18-22

These words are painful to read, and they express a deep grief over a wound that was not being addressed, so could not be healed. The balm of Gilead was a well known salve used to help heal wounds. Egyptians sought it (Genesis 37:25, Jeremiah 46:11), and its medicinal qualities were well known. But, to heal a wound – first the injury must be recognized and acknowledged. Then steps can be taken to clean the wound, apply medicine to the area, stitch it, and wrap it up, so that healing can actually take place. The people of Judah couldn’t apply the ‘balm of Gilead’, as they did not acknowledge that they even had a wound. Do you have a wound that needs to be acknowledged? Do you have an injury that you have ignored, or denied? If so, identifying it to yourself and to God, is a good first step.

No Balm in Gilead2023-03-18T09:58:36-06:00

Disaster is Coming – Lament Will Begin

“The people of Judah have done evil in my eyes, declares the Lord. They have set up their detestable idols in the house that bears my Name and have defiled it. 31 They have built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to burn their sons and daughters in the fire — something I did not command, nor did it enter my mind. 32 So beware, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when people will no longer call it Topheth or the Valley of Ben Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter, for they will bury the dead in Topheth until there is no more room. 33 Then the carcasses of this people will become food for the birds and the wild animals, and there will be no one to frighten them away. 34 I will bring an end to the sounds of joy and gladness and to the voices of bride and bridegroom in the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem, for the land will become desolate.”

8:1 “At that time, declares the Lord, the bones of the kings and officials of Judah, the bones of the priests and prophets, and the bones of the people of Jerusalem will be removed from their graves. 2 They will be exposed to the sun and the moon and all the stars of the heavens, which they have loved and served and which they have followed and consulted and worshiped. They will not be gathered up or buried, but will be like dung lying on the ground. 3 Wherever I banish them, all the survivors of this evil nation will prefer death to life, declares the Lord Almighty.” Jeremiah 7:30-8:3

In chapters 7 and 8 of Jeremiah, we begin to see the first signs of the fate that awaits the nation of Judah. Convinced of their own special connection to Yahweh [YAH-veh], they do not see their fate coming. In chapter 7, we see Jeremiah at his fiery best, as he calls out the nation that has continued to sacrifice in the temple but has failed to live out the way of Yahweh [YAH-veh] in practice. Even their repentance has been hollow. He predicts that the fate of Judah will be the same as Israel’s. He tells us of an “end to the sounds of joy and gladness”.

Disaster is coming. Lament will begin.

And the city once full of the sounds of joy and gladness will be left desolate.  Jeremiah 7:34

At the end of the seventh century BC, the Chaldean Empire would sweep across the area we know today as the Middle East. While we might have some sense of what would take place, our information is limited. Kathleen O’Conner notes that the writing of history usually omits mention of human suffering. The brutal practices are often lost in the simple narratives of Jeremiah, and we are left to imagine as best we can: the displaced families left with nothing, the stench of a city under siege, and above all, the loss of life and dignity.

It is perhaps Lamentations rather than Jeremiah that best provides us a window into this suffering.

Our ancestors sinned and are no more, and we bear their punishment.
Slaves rule over us, and there is no one to free us from their hands.
We get our bread at the risk of our lives because of the sword in the desert.
Our skin is hot as an oven, feverish from hunger.
Women have been violated in Zion, and virgins in the towns of Judah.
Princes have been hung up by their hands; elders are shown no respect.
Young men toil at the millstones; boys stagger under loads of wood.
The elders are gone from the city gate; the young men have stopped their music.
Joy is gone from our hearts; our dancing has turned to mourning.
The crown has fallen from our head.
Woe to us, for we have sinned!   Lamentations 5:7-13

As we enter a week of contemplating and participating in ”lament”, begin by placing yourself in the midst of the people of Jerusalem. What are your emotions? What actions follow? Where is God in the midst of it all?

Disaster is Coming – Lament Will Begin2023-03-18T23:26:46-06:00
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