By Mark Grace, CCCNZ Ambassador
I pera ai he hara no ona poropiti, he he no ona tohunga kua whakaheke nei i nga toto o te hunga tika ki waenganui ona.
Ona o agasala a ona perofeta ma amioletonu a ona faitaulaga e na faamaligi le toto o e amiotonu i totonu ia te ia;
But it happened because of the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests, who shed within her the blood of the righteous
Lamentations 4:13
Jerusalem has fallen. Solomon’s Temple has fallen.
Lamentations 4 paints a harrowing picture of Jerusalem’s utter devastation, desolation, and starvation. The cup of God’s judgement has been emptied on the city.
Why? Lamentations 4 answers the question from a wide-angle perspective. Verse 13 zooms in to give us an answer from a close-up perspective.
The wide-angle perspective is that the people, their prophets, their priests and their king had stopped trusting God’s power and instead trusted in Egyptian military might. They allowed their hearts to be given over to the idols of power.
This idolatry led to pride and self-sufficiency, which in turn led to ignoring God’s word and his prophets.
The close-up perspective in Lamentations 4:13 shows that all their pride and arrogance eventually led to the moral and spiritual corruption of the priests.
The prophets, the priests, the king and the people have fallen. Two things stand out for me from this. First, my heart is no different. I have fallen. But second, Christ the God-man stands in my place as God’s true and better Prophet, Priest, and King.
I read a quote this week from Collin Hansen and loved it: “When I met James Davison Hunter it was 2016. I asked him about politics. He waved me off and told me to think less about the weather and more about the climate. I’ve never forgotten the lesson.”
The difference between the weather and the climate is crucial, and the analogy can be applied to Lamentations 4. The weather was God’s withering judgement on Jerusalem. The climate is God’s grace, the knowledge that judgement will end, the reality that the cup will pass to the neighbouring nation of Edom and ultimately be taken completely by Jesus Christ.
In light of Lamentations 4, we can be grateful for our true Prophet, Priest and King, who is not only righteous but who also took the judgment we deserve.
Although it’s good to take note of the weather in a nation, we should never miss the climate—what God is doing in Christ across the nations, to reconcile a people to himself from every tribe and tongue.
