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Lamentations is
located immediately after the book of Jeremiah in the Christian Old Testament
because of the traditional understanding that the prophet Jeremiah was the
author of the book. But in the Jewish Bible, Lamentations is in the third and
final section, grouped with other writings. The book is a series of five
expressions of grief called laments, and in 1923 Thomas Chisholm wrote the hymn
“Great Is Thy Faithfulness” as a meditation on Lamentations. Chisholm was born
in 1866 in Kentucky,
and was ordained into the Methodist ministry at age 36. Shortly after his
ordination, his health failed and he had to leave the ministry. He moved to Indiana and then New
Jersey, where he opened an insurance office. He began
writing poetry and sent a number of poems to William Runyan, a friend and colleague
in ministry. Runyan wrote the tune called “Faithfulness,” hoping that it would
carry the message of the poem “in a worthy way.”
The well-known refrain of the hymn says: Great is thy faithfulness! Great is thy faithfulness! / Morning by morning, new mercies I see. / All I have needed thy hand hath provided. / Great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto me! Chisholm’s words are a poetic adaptation of Lamentations 3:22-23: “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”
The hymn one of the few hymns among the 1200 poems written by Chisholm that is still in use today. He wrote it as a testimony to God’s faithfulness through his very ordinary life. “My income has not been large at any time due to impaired health in the earlier years which has followed me on until now,” he wrote toward the end of his life. “Although I must not fail to record here the unfailing faithfulness of a covenant-keeping God and that he has given me many wonderful displays of his providing care, for which I am filled with astonishing gratefulness.” Believing that “the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,” Chisholm addressed God directly with the words, “Great is thy faithfulness.”
Since God’s mercies never come to an end, the writer of Lamentations goes on to say, “The Lord is my portion … therefore I will hope in him” (Lam 3:24). In this case, writes professor of Old Testament Kathleen O’Connor, “hope is a decision of the speaker based on remembrance of divine mercy.” The writer knows that we live our lives forwards, but we can only understand them backwards. Lamentations goes on to affirm that “the Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him” (Lam 3:25). But a life of seeking God is no guarantee of freedom from suffering. “It is good for one to bear the yoke in youth,” he writes, “to sit alone in silence when the Lord has imposed it, to put one’s mouth to the dust (there may yet be hope), to give one’s cheek to the smiter, and be filled with insults” (Lam 3:27-30). The writer’s “waiting here is expectant, and it is filled with suffering,” says O’Connor.
Not surprisingly,
many Christians associate these verses with Jesus and his suffering. After all,
he was the one who bore a cross and was “filled with insults.” But the passage
ends on a more hopeful note, with the assurance that “the Lord will not reject
forever. Although he causes grief, he will have compassion according to
the abundance of his steadfast love; for he does not willingly afflict or
grieve anyone” (Lam 3:31-33). A balance is struck in these verses between the
God who “causes grief” and the God “who will have compassion.” In the end, God
may be the cause of grief, but he does not “willingly afflict or grieve anyone.”
Perhaps God allows suffering to occur, but he does not will people to suffer.
This chapter of
Lamentations raises important questions about divine power. O’Connor asks, “Is
God the source of or able to prevent historical tragedy? Or is God in some sense
limited by the world and its ways?” The writer of Lamentations may be pointing
to “a God who suffers with, who empathizes with, who is pained by the
destruction of the people.” This understanding of God is certainly revealed in the life of Jesus, one who
suffered terribly in his own life, and who felt compassion for those in pain
around him. In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus crossed the Sea of Galilee by boat,
and when “he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them”
(Mark 6:34). The word compassion comes from the Latin com, “with,” and pati,
“to suffer.” When Jesus shows compassion, he literally “suffers with” the
people around him.
The Book of
Lamentations does not answer the question of how a good God allows pain and
suffering to exist in the world, but it does affirm that “the steadfast love of
the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness” (Lam 3:22-23). This passage is one of the Bible’s greatest
hits because it tells us that God’s steadfast love and mercy are eternal. In a
world of suffering and lamentation, we can gain comfort from the knowledge that
God suffers alongside us, and that God’s faithfulness to us is always great.
Questions:
1. Where do you see signs of the faithfulness of God?
2. What is the significance of suffering in the life of faith?
3. How does the love of God help you to cope with pain?
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