Listen

The memory of my suffering and homelessness is bitterness and poison. I can’t help but remember and am depressed. I call all this to mind—therefore, I will wait.

Certainly the faithful love of the Lord hasn’t ended; certainly God’s compassion isn’t through! They are renewed every morning. Great is your faithfulness. I think: The Lord is my portion! Therefore, I’ll wait for him.

Lamentations 3:19-24

Think

The Saturday between Good Friday and Easter is terrible. Jesus is dead. His disciples and family are grieving and afraid. All the things Jesus’ followers hoped for — the coming Kingdom of God, Jesus’ teachings about peace, healing, and justice — lie unfulfilled along with Jesus in the grave. Where could they find any hope at all?

Perhaps the disciples and Jesus’ family found hope in the Jewish scriptures. Maybe they sang the poem of Lamentations 3. A “suffering” and “depressed” author wrote it after the Babylonian Empire conquered Jerusalem. All seemed lost for the author, now having no home or temple in which to worship. Yet, the poem declares confidence in God’s restoring love saying, “certainly God’s compassion isn’t through!” The author found hope in who God is. God’s character is faithfulness. God promised blessing for the people of Israel, so the author – and Jesus’s family and disciples – will wait for God to keep that promise.

I wonder where you find hope on terrible days. What does it mean for you that “certainly God’s compassion isn’t through!”?

Jay Kieve

Pray

Great is your faithfulness, God, even on the terrible days.

Help me to find hope even when all seems lost.

Amen.

Go

When I was sinking down, sinking down, sinking down,
when I was sinking down, sinking down,
when I was sinking down beneath God’s righteous frown,
Christ laid aside his crown for my soul, for my soul,
Christ laid aside his crown for my soul.

from “What Wondrous Love Is This,” anonymous (ca. 1811)