Proclaimer Blog
Who sings Lamentations?
Who sings it? Duh. Jesus sings it of course. Here is my working hypothesis. The corporate nature of Israel’s destruction, captured uniquely in the destruction of the temple does not point to the church primarily or individual Christians, but to Christ, the true Israel and the Temple which would itself be destroyed.
Jesus sings Lamentations. This is Gethsemane lament. This is cross-song. This is the sentiment of the nation which seems finished, whose enemies gloat, where things seem so desperate there is no way out, but for whom the faithfulness of God is the hope that keeps the faith alive. He may be forsaken on the cross, afflicted and smitten, destroyed, but he will be rebuilt in three days.
Yep. Jesus sings Lamentations. Of course, we sing it too – but in him. This is our song because it is his song first. As much as we resonate with the afflictions of the Laments, it is in the scope and shape of passages such as Colossians 1.24 and filling up the afflictions of Christ.
Well, you may say, you get to the same applications in the end. Not true, I say. For an application which goes something like “their experience is our experience” is NOT the same as “their experience is our experience because it was Christ’s experience first”. That is a whole different sermon and one, I would argue, which is sharper, more Christ-centred, more likely to draw appropriate lines.
And I’m glad. I’m glad that, ultimately, Jesus sings Lamentations so that I don’t have to.