July 6

Day 114: Especially on a Dark, Rainy Monday

After decent weather we're now back to rain. Want to begin your workweek and add to the downer? Read Lamentations.

The writer (maybe Jeremiah, maybe someone or someones else) is pictured, in the mid 500's BC, sitting and writing in the middle of destruction. God had finally judged Jerusalem for her many sins. What's left over is a mess. (Picture a post-apocalyptic, bombed out city.)

The writer is not exempt. Again, he's right there. At one point he says, quite graphically, that "He has made my teeth grind on gravel, and made me cower in ashes." All this while he is surrounded by the few stragglers who remain in town. Famine and death were real.

The others were left confused; couldn't reason why God had done this. The collective world view, and the writer's were not the same.

Their culture, not unlike our own, had held to the notion that some sins are worse that others. Apparently, being idol-worshippers was not one of the worst. Speaking against national security was. They wanted to be saved without confession of sin.

We're not too different. We choose our preferred political stance, or our specific cause, and we will say and do just about anything to make the point.

And when we think we're right, the ends justifies the means. Except that it doesn't.

Romans 3:10 says, "None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God." Context? Paul is not writing to the culture; he's writing directly to the church in Rome.

His point? When we think we're right about something, we feel justified to say or do whatever aids the cause.

The Bible says otherwise.

Romans 1:21 says, "For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. (Look up at the sky today, and picture our dark hearts.)

The writer of Lamentations saw this too, even saying, "I have forgotten what happiness is." (Probably written on a Monday.)

But what made him different than his few remaining neighbors? The writer knew how it had all come about. Like Romans 3:10, he was willing to acknowledge and address his own sin. He saws himself complicit in the collective sin.

For him, and us too, in confessing and renouncing our own sin, we find hope. Not in the repentance itself, but in the One we repent to.

Jeremiah, 3:21-24 says, "But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: 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 LORD is my portion, says my soul, therefore I will hope in him"

We can only see God's righteousness when we first see ourselves to be on the wrong side of God's law.

We can only have real hope when we renounce our misplaced hope in anyone or anything else.

When our political stance, our specific cause no longer dictate life to us. When the desired ends do not justify the sinful means. When we finally realize that no sin outweighs another sin.

When we see how incredibly needy we are. When we finally see that our hope is in the righteousness of God, and not our own.

Especially on a dark, rainy Monday.

-Mike Rydman, Lead Pastor, Radiant Church | Juneau