On first reading, it seems fair to ask why Lamentations 4? It’s a fair question to ask because, for the most part, the poet simply rehashes chapters 1-3. But upon further meditation on the poem, one comes to appreciate its value for God’s people in helping them process and respond rightly to his judgement in repentance and faith. In his judgment against Judah, God is not only reversing their fortunes but also restoring their hope in Him alone.

‘I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of God’s wrath’ (Lam.3:1).

In the third poem of lament, we hear from the poet himself – and his description is striking. He is a man. He is obviously in the middle of this tragedy. He has experienced it personally, and yet he also seems to speak representatively. Who is this man?

I think it is most likely Jeremiah – the prophet who had laboured for 40 years calling God’s people back. And he did experience all this personally (just compare Jeremiah 38 with Lam.3:52-57) – and so, he can also speak representatively.

As he experiences the immense dissonance of, for example, the ‘rod’ of God that guides him safely (remember Ps.23:4) through the ‘valley of the shadow of death’ which now brings affliction, where does he turn? What does he consider?

Jeremiah turns to the bedrock theological truths of the LORD – and so, he waits patiently on Him, and trusts that His ‘faithful love’ will bring deliverance.

Lamentations is not a book many of us have read recently, perhaps ever. And it is not an easy book to digest, to listen to, even to understand in our modern sensibilities.

Connected inseparably with the prophet Jeremiah, it is a visceral response to the fall of Jerusalem in 586BC. In that moment, the identity of God’s people – that they were safe because the LORD had made a covenant with them – was shattered. It was shattered because they treated the covenant lightly, they took sin lightly, they refused to take seriously the merciful words of the LORD through the prophets calling them back.

The response in Lamentations is a ‘lament’ – a passionate cry to the LORD, asking ‘who?’ and ‘why?’. It is a striking cry for its structure – an acrostic, for its context – the covenant, and its emotion – there is utter despair here as God’s mob comprehend and experience His judgement for their sins.

Meals are a great thing! It is often what brings families together and even whole communities together. They gather people around shared values and create a sense of identity.

One of the last teaching moments with His disciples before His death, Jesus establishes the Lord’s Supper. As we heard last week, meals matter. The Passover held great significance for God’s people. Jesus now says what it pointed to—God’s salvation of His people from slavery, now would be seen in its fullest sense. That Jesus was going to die on the cross so that He could save God’s people from an even greater slavery… the slavery of sin.

As we gather around the table of the Lord’s Supper, we remember what Jesus has done for us, and proclaim to a watching world Jesus’ death until He comes back.

It is a wonderful meal that God’s people get to share together. But don’t let its goodness reduce the gravity of the meal. This is not something for everyone at any time. It is a grave joy to partake of the Lord’s Supper. Do we understand its significance, and examine ourselves rightly? Do we treasure its meaning? Does it stir in us a hope for the better things to come?

Meals are so important in the history of God’s mob – they shape fellowship and community by remembering the acts of God. The first and greatest was the Passover meal. It marked the remembrance of the great salvation by God, of His people, from slavery.

Described in Exodus 11-13, it was a meal that remembered the moment of salvation (when God brought the judgement of death on the firstborn in Egypt), the means of salvation (God’s action and the sacrifice of a perfect animal), and the nation created by the salvation (God’s people, descended from Abraham, were saved so that they could gather with God and worship him).

Celebrated annually, it shaped the people of God, defining them by God’s salvation of them. But they could never dwell with Him or worship Him – because of sin. They needed a greater salvation. And so, when Jesus gathers His disciples to celebrate the Passover on the evening of His betrayal, only hours before His death… well, you join the dots!

God’s covenant of grace with His people stands: one of Abraham’s seed will beat sin, and change the sinful nature of people, so that God can dwell with His mob again. Circumcision is the picture God gave His people, which pointed to this promise. This promise could only happen by God’s work alone.

At the end of the Old Testament, this promise stands. At the start of the New Testament, there is the hope of a ‘new beginning’ (Matt.1:1). This hope is followed by a genealogy which traces the ‘seed [singular] of Abraham’ down to Jesus (Matt.1:2-17). Jesus is described as the One who will ‘save His people from their sins’ (Matt.1:21). And then He does – through His life, death and resurrection alone, Jesus offers the forgiveness of sins and changed nature for God’s people.

As Jesus sends His people out to proclaim this to the world, He does so with a picture that points back to who fulfils the promise of God: the picture of baptism points BACK to Jesus! And the work He achieved is received by trusting in what He has done!

In His last days on earth, Jesus instructed His disciples to continually practice two sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s supper as signs of God’s saving grace towards us in Jesus.

Jesus here continues God’s practice in the Old Testament of using pictures and words to teach His people about His abiding grace towards a sinful humanity.

Often in the Old Testament, God gave a sign to accompany His covenant with His people. For example, when God made a covenant with Abraham to bless the whole world through his offspring, He gave him the sign of circumcision. Circumcision symbolized God’s promise to cleanse sinners through Abraham’s seed.

We are at the end of Matthew’s good news biography of Jesus. Matthew started with a statement of ‘new beginnings’, as God fulfilled his promise through Abraham and David, to bring outsiders back to God. And now the message is to go out to all the nations, from the one with all authority, creating a community that is connected to all of God, taught all of Jesus’ commands, and obeying all of them.

This is how Matthew finishes – from new beginnings to the proclamation of the new beginnings, to the whole world, God gathering his people in, through the news of Jesus. And as Jesus gives this command, he promises that he will never neglect his people, always being with them as they proclaim this good news to outsiders everywhere!

As dawn breaks on Sunday morning, women go to view the tomb…but what they see is far greater. An angel announces.. “He is not here. For he has risen..”

What wonderful, good news! Some in our passage are gripped with fear, still others are shocked, displaying unexpected joy. But should we be surprised? Isn’t this what Jesus was saying all along?

As we come to Easter, as we come to Jesus, be expectant that Jesus will do all he says. We can have complete confidence that what Jesus says.. Jesus does!

“He is not here. For he has risen, just as he said. Come see the place where he lay”. Death is defeated, the tomb is empty, and for those who trust in Jesus we have the promise of life after death because Jesus has gone before us.

Celebrate today that God is faithful and that Jesus now reigns!

The events of Good Friday have significant impact. Jesus, the outsider deals with sin in the only way possible. It involves an excruciating death, burial and is final. There are insults and mockery, confusion and speculation abound. Jesus, the outsider has left His mark.