Funeral Lectionary: Lamentations 

3:17-26

One great expression of hope gets set up by a strong lament. Are you willing to engage
the feeling of lament and grief so directly at the funeral? If so, here might be your
reading:

My soul is deprived of peace,

  I have forgotten what happiness is;
I tell myself my future is lost,
  all that I hoped for from the Lord.
The thought of my homeless poverty is wormwood and gall;
Remembering it over and over 
  leaves my soul downcast within me.
 
But I will call this to mind,
  as my reason to have hope:
The favors of the Lord are not exhausted,
  his mercies are not spent;
They are renewed each morning,
  so great is his faithfulness.
My portion is the Lord, says my soul;
  therefore will I hope in him.
Good is the Lord to one who waits for him,
  to the soul that seeks him;
It is good to hope in silence for the saving help of the Lord.
Lamentations is one of the more poetic offerings in the Bible. The catastrophe of
conquest and exile has shaken Judah’s survivors after Babylon’s 587BC obliteration
of Jerusalem. At the time of a loved one’s death, perhaps a surprising death that turns
life for the mourners on its ear, perhaps this whole book will resonate.

There is a very honest and healthy grief in Lamentations. The author does not propose
any easy answers. No “things will be okay.” No “this too shall pass.” Just raw grief and
lament. The first sixteen verses of this chapter get pretty intense. When you read that
God has led the “everyman” into darkness not light, has turned his hand against,
besieged and encircled with poverty, etc., one gets the idea that a twisted version of
Psalm 23 is the inspiration here. The image of God is not pretty, and the believer is not
afraid to utter it.

Fortunately by verse 17, the mood turns, and one last summary leads into verse 21ff, in
which God’s lasting and eternal quality of hesed (lovingkindness) is recalled. We are not
given any external evidence for God’s love. It’s as natural as another day coming. We can
choose to acknowledge it, (vv 21-26) or we can continue to wallow in pain (vv 1-20)–it
doesn’t affect God’s quality either way.
I have a recollection of this passage being proclaimed at one funeral I attended. Maybe.
It would take a great deal of courage to confront this Scripture so soon after a death. For
myself, I’m not sure I could muster it. What about you?