Lamentations 3:1 – I Am The Man
Rev. Joel Loughridge was unable to write the notes for 1 Samuel this week due to a family bereavement. So, this week we are looking at Lamentations chapter 3 using notes by Rev. Kyle Borg, minister of Winchester RP church.
The third lament contains some of the most well known verses from the book of Lamentations and perhaps of the Old Testament. That is not without its reason. Situated at the very center of this book you will notice that this lament is three times as long as the other four laments – sixty-six verses instead of twenty-two. In its content it rises above the others like a strong tower of refuge that shelters mourners in all their sorrows.
The lament opens with the usual expression: “I am the man who has seen affliction.” The sorrow and suffering of Judah is described in the experience of a single individual in verses 1-24 and 48-66, but in verses 40-47 with “we.” Why this back-and-forth between the singular and plural – who is the man that is afflicted? Perhaps the easiest way to answer that question is that this third lament give us the language of personal sorrow expressed by the Prophet Jeremiah, but he does so not simply for himself, but on behalf of God’s people. He is the representative mourner, the weeping Prophet – “For the wound of the daughter of my people is my heart wounded” (Jeremiah 8:21). By that he gives a pattern and paradigm that we might learn from him and grieve even as he does.
As we look at Lamentations let us remember that the greater than Jeremiah has come. The author of Hebrews said of Jesus: “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence” (Hebrews 5:7). How true this was of his life. He wept at the tomb of Lazarus, he mourned over Jerusalem, he agonized in the Garden of Gethsemane, and he cried aloud on the cross of Calvary. Behold the weeping Savior. By that he gives us a pattern and paradigm and by his own tears has sanctified every tear shed in holy grief.
Questions
- Why it is important to see Jeremiah as the representative mourner?
- Who else has given us a pattern of grief?
Prayer Points
- Thank the Lord for Jesus and his suffering.
- Use prayer points from your congregation.
- Pray for family matters.