Restore Us To Yourself, O LORD

~ Lamentations 5 ~

A Sacred Sorrow

Studies in the book of

Lamentations

~ The Season of Lent 2017 ~

Finding Your Voice When Life Doesn’t Make Sense

“Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow…”

~ Lamentations 1:12

…it is critical to name the source of all that has gone wrong. The name of the source is

sin—a term that is one of the most avoided and yet

compelling aspects of the Christian faith.

Sin is routinely denied in many

societies today, and yet it can be life-

giving to understand and acknowledge it.

Invoking the reality of sin gives us language

to describe and protest all that is

wrong in this world and in our lives…

“The way things are is not the way things have to be.”

Restore Us To Yourself, O LORD

~ Lamentations 5 ~

Structure of Lamentations

Ch. 1: Jerusalem’s Lament

Ch. 2: Jerusalem’s Fall

Ch. 3: Jerusalem’s Hope

Ch. 4: Jerusalem’s Seige

Ch. 5: Jerusalem’s Prayer

Acrostic Poems: Chapters 1 & 2

01 - A

02 - B

03 - C

Acrostic Poems: Chapter 3

01 - A

02 - B

03 - C

AA

BB

CC

Acrostic Poems: Chapter 4

01 - A

02 - B

03 - C

Acrostic Poems: Chapter 5

01 - K

02 - Z

03 - F

04 - S

05 - C

“And it came to pass after Israel had gone into captivity, and Jerusalem was laid waste, that Jeremiah sat

weeping and composed this lament over Jerusalem….”

Introduction to the Septuagint(the Greek Translation of the OT in 2BC)

01 Remember, O LORD, what has befallen us; look and see our disgrace. 02 Our inheritance has been turned over

to strangers, our homes to foreigners. 03 We have become orphans, fatherless;

our mothers are like widows.

Lamentations 5

01 Remember, O LORD, what has befallen us; look and see our disgrace. 02 Our inheritance has been turned over

to strangers, our homes to foreigners. 03 We have become orphans, fatherless;

our mother are like widows.

Lamentations 5

“…the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to

God. And God heard their groaning and remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.

God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.”

~ Exodus 2:23-25

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant… I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people…. For I will forgive their

iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

~ Jeremiah 31:31ff

“For thus says the Lord: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill my promise and bring you back to this

place. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for wholeness and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then

you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find

me. When you seek me with all your heart, I will be found by you, declares the Lord….”

~ Jeremiah 29:10-14

04 We must pay for the water we drink; the wood we get must be bought. 05 Our pursuers are at our necks;

We are weary; we are given no rest. 06 We have given the hand to Egypt, and

to Assyria, to get bread enough.

Lamentations 5

09 We get our bread at the peril of our lives, because of the sword in the

wilderness. 10 Our skin is hot as an oven with the

burning heat of famine….

Lamentations 5

11 Women are raped in Zion, young women in the towns of Judah.

12 Princes are hung up by their hands;no respect is given to the elders.

13 Young men are compelled to grindat the mill, and boys stagger under loads of wood….

Lamentations 5

07 Our fathers sinned, and are no more; and we bear their iniquities….

15 The joy of our hearts has ceased; our dancing has turned to mourning.

16 The crown has fallen from our head;woe to us; for we have sinned…!

Lamentations 5

The slightest sin is an act of defiance against cosmic authority. It is a

revolutionary act, a rebellious act where we are setting ourselves in opposition to the One

to whom we owe everything.

[These] Hebrew words…(‘Woe-indeed to-us for we-have-sinned’) may be the

shortest, simplest and deepest moment of self-awareness in the book.

Indeed, they are perhaps the most concise condens-

ing of the essence of repentance in Scripture…

On the foundation of this clear-eyed but tear-filled acknowledgement, the

Poet will lead the people to appeal to God, for the

grace of repentance and restoration.

17 For this our hearts have become sick, for these things our eyes have growndim,

18 for Mount Zion lies desolate; jackals prowl over it.

Lamentations 5

19 But you, O LORD, reign forever; your throne endures to all generations.

Lamentations 5

20 Why do you forget us forever; why do you forsake us for so many days?

Lamentations 5

21 Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored!Renew our days as of old—

Lamentations 5

“Whom have I in heaven but you?

And earth has nothing I desire besides you.”

~ Asaph in Psalm 73

21 Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored!Renew our days as of old—

22 unless you have utterly rejected us,and you remain exceedingly angry with us.

Lamentations 5

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

“Come, Lord Jesus.”~ Revelation 22:20 ~

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