Grace in a Season of Change – A Reflection on Lamentations 3:22

Grace and Peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

We live in uncertain and anxious times. There are many unanswered questions about what the future holds for each one of us and there seems to be so many things threatening to take away our hopes and dreams. The church is not immune to this anxiety either. Many individuals and congregations of the LCA are looking around and seeing institutions, that were previously thought to be stable and steadfast, begin to unravel and crumble. Many are looking forward to the future and wondering, ‘What’s going to happen next?’, ‘How are we to going to make it through?’

If anyone had reason to be anxious about the future, the author of Lamentations, the prophet Jeremiah had a fair claim. In the first three chapters of his book, he writes words of incredible lament as he looks out over the ruins of Jerusalem, detailing what could be described as a post-apocalyptic waste land. The whole city has been plundered and laid to waste, women and children are starving in the streets, the city walls have been reduced to rubble. But all of a sudden, his overwhelming grief is abruptly interrupted by a thought…

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.
Lamentations 3:22

In the depths of despair, Jeremiah remembers the covenantal faithfulness of the Lord towards his people, his abiding love and his commitment to never truly forsake them. Jeremiah remembers that there is hope in all circumstances because the Lord remains true to the promises he has made to his people and that despite all appearances the Lord is using all things to bring about his eternal purposes.

These words from Lamentations remind us today that we can take heart in whatever circumstances we find ourselves in, because God is always at work in our midst, continually offering a lifeline of forgiveness, grace and hope. A striking aspect of this verse is the “newness” of God’s mercy towards us. God is not a distant god who offers us a generic one-size fits all blessing, but rather his mercies are new every morning, created especially to precisely fit the needs that we have. God is actively and creatively trying to weave his grace into our lives and the lives of our congregation. So, in this age of anxiety, where it is tempting to be overcome by what we see around us and what looms over the horizon, we are called to wait on the Lord and be looking for the new mercies that he is creating for us – day-by-day, moment-by-moment. The truth is that we have even more reason to be hopeful about the future than Jeremiah, for we live with a post-resurrection perspective. We’ve seen how God was actively at work bringing about a new mercy, salvation for all who believe, even through the death, desolation and despair of Good Friday.

As a practical application, perhaps you could make these words from Lamentations 3:22 your own, and use them to interrupt a conversation, phone call or meeting you are in where you find yourself weighed down lamenting your situation or despairing about the future. These are powerful words that force us to look away from ourselves and toward our Heavenly Father with anticipation.

May the peace of God that surpasses all human understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

Pastor Carl currently serves at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church & Holy Trinity Lutheran College, Mildura