God’s Word for You
Lamentations 5:14-16 We have sinned
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Wednesday, April 16, 2025
14 The elders are no longer at the city gate.
The young men no longer play music.
15 The joy of our hearts is gone;
our dancing has turned to mourning.
16 The crown has fallen from our head.
Woe to us, for we have sinned!
The prophet continues to describe life in Jerusalem after most of the exiles have been marched away northward, to Damascus, then to Palmyra, perhaps the mountain called Jebel Bishri, and then to the upper banks of the Euphrates. We have no reason to think the Babylonians would have been gentle with the captives. During World War II, a similar march was made northward through the Bataan Peninsula, with Japanese soldiers brutally treating the American and Filipino prisoners as they were forced to walk for nine days with almost no water and even less food. Prisoners who collapsed were murdered where they fell. Some men were buried alive because they were too weak to resist. The guards constantly lied to the prisoners, promising food each night when food was almost never given (until it was too late to save a man’s life). And they were delighted to snatch away the prisoner’s water to give to their horses. Many hundreds of Americans and perhaps ten thousand Filipinos died during those brutal days. How many Jews died on the march along the edge of the desert from Jerusalem to the ditches along the Euphrates? The discussions of the elders in the gate, the music of the young men in the evenings—the city was silent. “The gaiety of the tambourines is stilled, the noise of the revelers has stopped. The joyful harp is silent” (Isaiah 24:8).
The “crown” was both the crown of their last kings, Jeconiah and Zedekiah, but also the joy and delight of the people. Their crown of contentment, of success, of peace, was gone. Struck off on account of their sinfulness.
The crown of Christ? A Levite foresaw his bitter plight: “You have defiled his crown in the dust” (Psalm 89:39). He should have worn a glorious crown, one unlike every other crown; more dazzling, more beautiful. But the idea of Christ with a crown was unthinkable to the high priest and the Pharisees. It was what they feared the most. They tried to tempt him and twist his words into an admission that it was a crown and a throne that he was after, but he kept explaining that his kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36), but within the hearts of God’s people (Luke 17:21). But then he did indeed receive a crown. “They twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on him” (Mark 15:17) and they hailed him as king, but only to mock him. Job had said: “He has stripped me of my honor and removed the crown from my head” (Job 19:9).
Jesus had taught at the city gate. He had sung music, as well (Matthew 26:30; Mark 14:26), just as the prophet said: “He will rejoice over you with singing” (Zephaniah 1:17). But that was over with when he suffered on the cross. He could barely rasp out words, thirsty and parched, and mostly silent during the long hours of his ordeal.
Perhaps it reminded someone there of the words of our text when the sky grew dark (Luke 23:44): “The joy of our hearts is gone; our dancing has turned to mourning.” His suffering was unlike any other suffering. His suffering was the unyielding pain of hell. The Son of God had been removed from the love of God the Father. Of God his Father.
What about our crosses? There are special pains, special and specific agonies that are hinted at here. When the elder’s mind and memory no longer allow him to take part in talks, and the family sets him apart (hopefully with respect and love), but his loneliness is no less keen, no less empty, but is made an emptier loneliness on account of his solitude. A terrible cross to carry, and without being able to tell anyone about the pain. The loneliness.
Or when a person, a musician, is no longer able to sing or play, because of a failing voice, or failing fingers, or arthritic joints. The soaring joy of music, taken away into nothing but memory, is a cross with an ache that lingers. The thought comes: “I used to be able to hit that note and give people pleasure with it, but I will never hit that note again.” There is a resignation in such a thought. Satan has pulled back the curtain to tease the Christian with the coming of life’s end, and in his lies and torment he hides the glory of heaven’s choirs and orchestras that await our arrival, for even those who struggled with music in life, or were denied music in life, will sing and solo and soar with voice and instruments unlearned in Paradise. Our wailing will be turned to dancing once again (Psalm 30:11). And we who never could dance will put Fred and Ginger to shame.
What do these crosses do? They invite us to say, “Woe to us, for we have sinned!” “We have indeed sinned against you” (Jeremiah 14:20). This is the blessing of the Christian’s cross. Yes, the blessing. We are led to remember through our pain and setbacks that we fall short of the glory of God. We need a Savior from our sins, and we cannot, cannot, cannot save ourselves. And therefore the beautiful thought of that Friday, that Good Friday, when Christ gave himself for us, brings us grief over sin but joy over Jesus and his victory. Who in the world has a God like ours, who gave his own life to rescue his people from pain and damnation?
Only we. Only he.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.