BST: The Message of Lamentations

Honest to God.
The destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 587 BC is the likely setting
for the book of Lamentations. This was the most traumatic event in the whole of
Old Testament history, with its extreme human suffering, devastation of the
ancient city, national humiliation, and the undermining of all that was thought
to be theologically guaranteed - the Davidic monarchy, the city of Zion, and
the temple of the God of Israel.
It is out of that unspeakable pain that Lamentations speaks, in poetry of
astonishing beauty and intricacy, though soaked in tears.
If we neglect this book, says Chris Wright, we miss the challenge and reward of
wrestling with the massive theological issues that permeate it. How can
suffering be endured alongside faith in an all-loving, good God? Even if these
events are recognized and accepted as God's judgment, has not the flood of
brutality and evil gone beyond all bounds? If anarchy, death and destruction
stalk the land, can the centre of Israel's faith hold?
Wright shows that as Christian readers we must not, and cannot, isolate
Lamentations from the rest of the Bible; and equally, that we should not read
the rest of the Bible without Lamentations. We must still let it speak for
itself, as a book for today.
Series: The Bible Speaks Today Old Testament.
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