7 Jerusalem remembers, in the days of her affliction and wandering, all the precious things that were hers in days of old. When her people fell into the hand of the foe, and there was no one to help her, the foe looked on mocking over her downfall.
The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989), La 1:7.
Memories are wonderful and dangerous.
Recently a friend of mine told me something about a loved one dealing with cancer that brought back to mind a specific moment in the experience of our son James. Jody was overseas when he had some symptoms and I took him to the doctor. Tests and scans told us that cancer had recurred–for the fourth time. I had to let Jody know, and the only way to do this where she was located was through email. I had the duty of inflicting that pain on her at a time when I couldn’t do anything to support her. I had to tell James, who had sworn me to call him the instant I knew anything.
It is not a pleasant memory. It happened in June, and pretty much every June I have a few days when that memory crowds me.
But there’s something that happens when you have passed through a dark valley, and that’s the realization that life went on and that God was with you even when you were not with God. That realization of the Divine Presence is easy to lose in the valley.
Psalm 23 is one of the best known passages of scripture. It has a key verse: “Even though I’m passing through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.” I like keeping the “valley of the shadow of death.” There is good reason to translate this as “deep darkness” or something similar, but I think the traditional wording from the KJV has the right feel to it.
When Job has gone through trouble, God shows up and lectures him. Job’s response, “Now my eyes see you” (Job 42:3). After all the theological debate of the book, the landing place is that God really was there, really did hear, really did know.
To bring this back to the actual historical background of our text, when Israel went into exile, the event that is being lamented here, the question was: “Is God actually with us? Does God care?” In the ancient near east it was generally thought that when one nation conquered another, the god of the winning side was also proven to be greater.
God comes to the prophet in exile, Ezekiel, and there is a simple but profound statement that opens the book that bears Ezekiel’s name. “… I was among the exiles by the river Kebar, and I saw visions of God” (Ezekiel 1:1). The river (or canal) Kebar was in Babylon.
Even on what seemed to them the other side of the world, well away from their land, which many saw as “God’s land,” God was there. Our verse talks about remembering former glory. But there’s a present glory, the glory of the God who is with us. Always. Especially when life’s hardships, even torments, overwhelm us.
Let’s try to remember that Glory.
(Featured image generated by Jetpack AI.)
See my paper on the vision of Ezekiel 1
