Israel had a problem… and it wasn’t just sin. Over and over it’s clear in any of the biblical laments (e.g. here in Lamentations and the laments found in the Psalm) that there is a problem, a seeming dilemma, that confounded Israel as they were in captivity. How could God be just and yet at the same time loving? You see this in Lamentations 3 clearly. The first eighteen verses highlight God’s judgement. He is a God of wrath because as DA Carson once said, “God is specifically angry with the replacing of Himself with someone or something, which at a fundamental level is idolatry. It is the ‘de-godding’ of God, the putting of something else in His place.” In essence, then this is taking all the blessings of being God’s covenant people and acting in a treasonous way.
Yet, isn’t God supposed to keep His word? Wasn’t His covenant given to both Abram and Moses based on “hesed” or loyal covenant love, totally unmerited, and filled with mercy and grace? How can God do this to His own people when he is, at His very core, loving? This is the dilemma in vv.19-27. The end is “It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.” Huh?
What Jeremiah is pointing to is the day of hope when both God’s justice and love would meet with a divine kiss. As we observe Easter, we declare at the top of our lungs, “He is Risen”. And the response of the people is also, “He is Risen Indeed!” It is in our proclamation that we boldly assert that He has accomplished this for us. He is the object of God’s divine wrath. He is the man in v.1 who has suffered the ultimate affliction, He is the one who was under the rod of God’s wrath, He is the one who was driven into an ultimate darkness. Why? So that we might be adopted, given all the rights and privileges of the Son! He takes our sin that we might experience the deep “hesed” of God as His righteousness is credited to our account. Our dilemma is that our hearts know it needs both justice and love. And it is today that we affirm God has done this for us. Even Jeremiah knew it!
