Sermon for HCBC (17 May 2020). To listen use the audio player below or click here. Also available on your favorite podcast app (“Hunting Creek Baptist Church”).
Introduction
One of the most formative events of my life came just after my sixteenth birthday. I noticed on the night of my birthday that I was thirsty all the time. I would drink a bottle of water and still be thirsty. I was also rapidly losing weight. I had lost almost 20 pounds. Despite eating everything I could, I only got sicker. Within another week, I became sleepless. My vision was blurred. And I got so weak that I couldn’t shower. My mom literally dragged me into the ER. Sitting in the waiting room, I was near lapsing into a coma. I would learn in about an hour that my blood sugar was over 1200, and I was immediately administered an IV of insulin. My world changed forever that day. I still remember lying in the ER and asking the doctor, “Am I going to die?”
If you wonder why I’m such an old soul with a bit of a dark disposition, that’s part of the reason. Those moments are so critical for shaping who we are as human beings and for shaping our walk with God. They hurt, to be sure. That’s why we often call them rock bottom. Falling on solid rock doesn’t usually feel good. But there’s good news. Through Christ, God is waiting for us at the bottom. And we will find that as J. K. Rowling said that we can rebuild our life from there. At the bottom, we find Christ, the rock who will provide foundation for our entire life.
The View from the Bottom
In Lamentations 4, Israel has hit rock bottom. The country has been destroyed. The temple, which was the center of their religious and national identity, is gone. Many people have been taken into captivity. Everything they knew about life has come crashing down around them. All the normal patterns have been disrupted. Life will never be the same again.
Let’s take a look at the first 11 verses in Lamentations 4. These verses show us what rock bottom looks like. Notice this opening image. It’s striking. Verse 1: “How the gold has grown dim, how the pure gold is changed.” This is a move from radiant and stunning to dull and unimpressive. That’s an image to illustrate how radically things have changed. But there are also some disturbing images throughout this text.
In v. 2, we have an indication of human abuse. “Precious sons of Zion … how they are regarded as earthen pots.” Objects to be used and thrown away. Verses 3–4 are some of the most disturbing in the entire book, perhaps even the Bible, but we need to press into them even though they will shock us and make us uncomfortable. Verse 3: “Even jackals offer the breast; they nurse their young; but the daughter of my people has become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.” In the ancient world, ostriches were considered to be unkind to their young. The devastation in Israel has been so severe that even mothers have failed to care for their children. They’ve become worse than jackals. At least the jackals feed their children. Verse 4: “The tongue of the nursing infant sticks to the roof of its mouth for thirst; the children beg for food, but no one gives to them.” Horrifying, distressing images. Verse 10 takes this a step further. Those who are the most vulnerable receive the greatest abuse.
And as we know, while the vulnerable are most susceptible, suffering does not always make distinctions between people. Verse 5: “Those who once feasted on delicacies perish in the streets; those who were brought up in purple embrace ash heaps.” Even the rich and well-to-do are brought down. Such is Israel’s rock bottom. The punishment has been severe and sustained. That’s in vv. 6 and 9.
Notice how the text uses colors to paint a picture. In vv. 1–2, there’s the image of shimmering gold. There’s the mention of purple in v. 5. Then there’s the mention of snow and milk as images of purity in v. 7. Coral and sapphire are also mentioned as markers of beauty. But then in v. 8, we have these images of soot and dry wood. The poet has gripped our imagination with shimmering gold that is now colorless and dirty like ashes in a firepit.
All of this, according to v. 11, is understood as God venting his wrath. Now we squirm at verses like this and look for ways out of them. But Romans 1 repeats this same idea. “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.” If we are going to be faithful readers of Scripture, we can’t simply dismiss it. But let me make three important comments. First, as I’ve said, God’s wrath is not human wrath. It is restrained and righteous, always tempered by his kindness. Keep the big picture in view. Second, the wrath of God has many expressions. When Paul speaks of wrath in Romans 1, he’s not talking about a malevolent being who is running around cursing people. He’s talking about a God who allows people to bring their own destruction upon themselves. Third, it is helpful to think about the brokenness of our world as an aspect of God’s wrath. All creation was subjected to the curse of sin. Things are not the way they are supposed to be. The world is broken, but God has a plan to redeem it.
What Is Your Rock Bottom?
Think back over the last two months: how things have changed. For most of us in our congregation, changes due to the virus have had little effect. But there is this collective feeling of grief, and while the devastation is nowhere near that of Lamentations, we have all felt the sorrow of this moment. And as we look at the world with compassionate eyes, we can’t help to see the extensive suffering that has and is occurring. Unemployment in the US is higher than it has been in almost 100 years. People are terrified. And around the world, the hunger crisis has increased exponentially. Some experts are predicting over 100 million people will die from hunger this year. At the time I wrote this, over four million living, breathing people with hopes and dreams and families had died from hunger this year alone.
That puts things into perspective for our own suffering, but let’s also talk about that. Life has changed for many in our congregation this year. Our congregation and experience as a local church have changed dramatically. Do you feel like you’ve hit rock bottom? Or, do you feel like you are in a freefall and you’re waiting for the impact? Or, maybe you have a personal struggle. Your marriage is a mess. One of your children is grieving you. Someone is sick. You hurt physically all the time. You’re still dealing with wounds and shame from decades ago. Or, you’ve got an addiction and you can shake it. Or, you’re anxious all the time. You’re depressed. You can’t sleep or you sleep all the time. You need to know that when you hit the bottom, you will feel the impact, your heart will hurt, but you won’t be alone because God will be there.
The really striking truth that Lamentations wrestles with is that in the midst of unspeakable suffering, God is still sovereign and faithful. Just pause for a second and say that to yourself. Fix it in your mind. In the midst of unspeakable suffering, God is still sovereign and faithful. If you take nothing else away from Lamentations, take that away.
Wrongs Will Be Righted
Verses 21–22 sound the only note of hope in Lamentations 4. Verse 21: “Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, you who dwell in the land of Uz.” Now this is a bit of a sarcastic taunt. Edom is the proverbial enemy of Israel in the prophetic literature of the OT. So we might put it this way. “Enemies of God’s people, you should rejoice now while there’s still time.” Look at the rest of v. 21: “But to you also the cup shall pass; you shall become drunk and strip yourself bare.” The cup is a common image for the cup of God’s wrath. Edom will be drunk with the wrath of God, so drunk that they will strip themselves bare as drunk people sometimes do. It’s a way of saying, “Judgment day is coming. God will set things right. Injustices will be addressed. Wrongs will be righted.”
Look at v. 22: “The punishment of your iniquity, O daughter of Zion, is accomplished; he will keep you in exile no longer.” What do they say about rock bottom? You can only go up from here. In Israel’s devastation, the Lord declares to them that he will not leave them there. But for Israel’s enemies, payment is coming. “Your iniquity, O daughter of Edom, he will punish; he will uncover your sins.” There’s a wordplay here. Israel’s iniquity has been punished. Edom’s will be punished. Israel’s exile has ended. That’s the Hebrew verb galah. But God will uncover the sins of Edom. Uncover is the Hebrew word galah. What has happened to Israel will come to an end, but her enemies will receive that punishment.
This is a good time to fit all this into the big story of Scripture. You may be familiar with the promise of Isaiah 40 since it’s common around Christmastime. Listen to the first two verses:
Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins.
Her iniquity is pardoned. The LORD will repay her with good. How is this possible? The NT applies Isaiah 40 to the ministry of Jesus. It is possible because God himself will come. And we know the rest of the story. The cup of punishment is drunk by Jesus. He prays in the garden that the cup might pass from him. It’s the cup of wrath. It’s filled with the sin, suffering, and sorrow of this world. But Jesus doesn’t reject the cup. He drinks it to the dregs, leaving it empty, absorbing it all. Whereas Israel, the son of God, failed to fulfill the covenant obligations, Jesus, true Israel, fulfilled the obligations of the covenant. On the cross, he says, “It is finished” because he has drunk the cup of God’s wrath to the end. The incredible news for us is that in Christ, we do not need to fear punishment because Christ has made peace for us by doing what we could never do for ourselves.
Christ Drinks the Cup
God steps down into the mess of this world. We’ve probably all asked the question when something tragic happens: Where was God in this? Where was God when my spouse died? Where was God when I was diagnosed with that disease? Where was God on 9/11? Where was God in the Holocaust? The gospel of Jesus has an answer. God was right in the middle of it. Jesus hangs on a cross with arms outstretched to this world. Christians worship a God who suffers and dies on a cross. Our Savior is the suffering servant of Isaiah. He bears the sins of the world.
He drinks the cup to the bottom. You may recall that when we take communion, I often set the empty cup on the table and remind you that the cup was emptied by Christ. And so, when we take communion, we are not drinking the cup of God’s wrath but the cup of God’s peace to us. It is a sign of the covenant he has made with us.
I don’t know what rock bottom looks like for you. You might not even know right now. You might just know that you’re in a mess or you’re tired or you’re scared or you’re not even sure what you’re feeling but something isn’t right. Christ is there with you. He isn’t afraid of your mess or suffering. He doesn’t want you to just handle it. He wants to carry it for you. He wants you to find rest in him. If you are in Christ, you do not need to fear God’s punishment. You are a son or daughter of the Lord of hosts, accepted and redeemed by the precious blood of Christ. God is not angry with you or punishing you. Your shame and guilt were drunk to the bottom by Christ. You are not alone in your suffering and your suffering is not the final world because all wrongs—all wrongs—will be righted by Christ.
Wisdom from the Bottom
This is the advantage of rock bottom. We realize that God will meet us there and he is the stable ground we so desperately need. Remember Augustine, “Our heart is restless until it rests in you, O God.” There’s one more feature of Lamentations 4, we haven’t talked about and that is the way rock bottom exposes the instability of all the things we previously hoped in. That’s vv. 12–20. Just take a look at two examples. Verse 12: “The kings of the earth did not believe, nor any of the inhabitants of the world, that foe or enemy could enter the gates of Jerusalem.” By human standards, Israel was untouchable. But even the untouchable are not safe. Israel learned this. Look at v. 17: “Our eyes failed, ever watching vainly for help; in our watching we watched for a nation which could not save.” They hoped in vain.
In verse 20, they talk about hoping in the LORD’s Messiah. See that phrase “the LORD’s anointed”? That’s the Messiah. But look they have a misunderstanding. Their supposed Messiah was captured. This is a reference to their king. They had hoped in the king as their Messiah. Look what they say about him at the end of the verse: “Under his shadow we shall live among the nations.” Here we have another indicator that the Messiah will be more than a man, he will be God himself because only God is worthy of our total trust. They had misunderstood that critical point. And the lesson for them and us is that only Christ can be our foundation.
What is your life built on? Where is your hope? Is it built on your security? Or people’s perception of you? Or your perception of yourself? Or your career? Your success? Your children? Your goodness? Your actions? Or fill in the blank. All of those things will let you down.
Conclusion
At the end of his Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 7, Jesus tells a parable. He says two men built houses. One built his house on sand. The other built his house on a rock. When the storms came, the house on the sand collapsed; the house on the rock stood. Jesus introduces that story by saying this: “Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock” (7:24). Only by following Jesus will we find a foundation worth building on. If you’re lying on the bottom right now, open your eyes, because Jesus is waiting for you there. “On Christ the solid rock I stand. All other ground is sinking sand. All other ground is sinking sand.”