An ancient city roaring and alive with the noise and daily commotion of those who reside within and those seeking their livelihoods. Not only was she a center of commerce and wealth, but she was also a fortress, walled with impregnable ramparts and time tested defenses. Prosperity flowed to and from her gates. These gates were regularly choked with merchants, travelers, onlookers, those pursuing public justice, and those who sought wisdom from venerated wise men.
Crowning this opulence was the Temple Mount. Gilded columns, priceless artifacts, relics of holy significance all within. Most were inaccessible to all but the select appointed and trained. This was the heartbeat of a nation, the epicenter of the “chosen” and “covenant” people of the Most High. This was the Jerusalem that Jeremiah, priest and prophet, knew for most of his life.
North of the
city was a hill known as “skull hill” as there was a series of caves that gave
it a skull-like appearance. Today, we
know it by a far more prominent name, both for its reference and its significance: Golgotha.
One of these caves bears the name of the above mentioned priest as he
made his abode there for a short time. From this location
later called “Jeremiah’s Grotto, he looks upon a city that is utterly
destroyed.
Jeremiah has
just witnessed the Babylonian siege that began in 589 BC.
Gates once choked with travelers and commerce have been barred closed in
defense for nearly two years. A thriving
urban center of tens of thousands has dwindled as starvation culls the
populace. Malnutrition causes old and
young to faint in the streets. The prospects and expectations of future generations wane as death takes elderly and adolescent alike. Mothers begin eating their young in desperation as disease indiscriminately stalks the wealthy and the
impoverished. Finally, Jeremiah witnesses
the breaching of Jerusalem’s impregnable fortifications.
Like locusts
the overwhelming forces of Nebuchadnezzar pour into the city. What defenders remained have fled abandoning
the inhabitants to Chaldean cruelty. Rape,
brutality, looting, murder, death; these are now the only commodity passing through these Judean gates. Screams of terror and suffering are now the
prominent language of the inhabitants. Acrid
smoke fills the air, stinging nostrils and irritating the eyes as burning erupts
throughout city, touching even the Temple Mount.
The temple,
the location of the Holy of Holies, the footstool of God’s presence on earth
where no man could enter without fear of death; the temple is burned, the
treasures are carried out. The Holy of
Holies is demolished along with the temple proper. God’s touchpoint with man was no more. The priests and caretakers of ancient wisdom are
slaughtered. The fortress walls of a
city are destroyed, and a city is ravaged.
Most of its remaining inhabitants are either killed or enslaved and
hauled into exile.
From his grotto
overlooking this devastation and ruin, Jeremiah pens the book of Lamentations. Much of the book is, as the title suggests –
a devastated heart crying out to God in lament and anguish. Jeremiah has just survived the upending of all he
knew and cherished on earth. The only
certainties now seem to be trials, difficulties, and possible death.
Here’s is
Jeremiah’s heart cry in the very center of his lament:
“Peace has been stripped away, and I have forgotten what prosperity is.
I cry out, ‘My splendor is gone! Everything I had hoped for
from the Lord is lost!’
The thought of my suffering and homelessness is bitter beyond words. I will never forget
this awful time, as I grieve over my loss. Yet I still dare to hope
when I remember this:
The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness;
his mercies begin afresh each morning. I say to myself, “The Lord is my inheritance; therefore, I will
hope in him!”
The Lord
is good to those who depend on him, to those who
search for him. So, it is good to wait quietly
for salvation from the Lord.”
Lamentations 3:17-26 NLT
How can this man say these things when
confronted with the realities of devastation immediately in front of him? How can he speak of hope and faithfulness
when the future shows nothing but darkness?
When the frailty of life is exposed and the certainties that were taken
for granted are no longer certain, how can he find peace for his soul from the
torment of fear and worry?
“I say to myself,
‘The Lord is my inheritance; …’ “
“heleq” – portion, share, inheritance,
allotment, parcel, territory, award
Jeremiah knows where that which endures and is eternal
rests, and it is not in the blackened rubble strewn streets before him. Yes, great and terrible loss has been suffered, but loss
of the temporal is the fate of everyone of us because the temporal is as fleeting
as the wisp of our time on this sphere. His inheritance
and award cannot be touched by armies of men, nor by fire or disaster. His inheritance, his portion, the bedrock upon which he has built his security comes from another source.
The one who created the temporal and the finite is eternal and without limit.
Our future, like Jeremiah’s, is not in bricks, structures, institutions,
accumulation, or anything tied to this failing world or its systems. Our only future is in Him. It is when we lose sight of this that we become
most desperately aggrieved in our losses and burdened by the deprivation of that which was never intended to endure. When we rely upon the provider, when we say to ourselves "He is my portion", we will find
his faithfulness and mercies “never cease”. These are the measure of a satisfied soul.
Centuries later, upon the hill that
crowns Jeremiah’s Grotto, another terrible loss occurred. This loss, however, yielded cosmic and eternal ramifications for all who would draw near as a man laid down and surrendered his
life, for redemption of yours and mine.
“The Lord is my inheritance…”
