AN INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH (Part VII)

THE BOOK OF LAMENTATIONS (Part VII)

Theological Bites

The book of Lamentations as any other book of the Bible is an inquisition on who God is in relation to what happened, what is happening and what is about to happen. The writer and the event he reports about is not as significant as what it stands for in the scope of the existing theology (understanding of God). While in the book of Job the question about God in relation to the suffering faithful Job is WHY? The question in Lamentation after the fall of Samaria, the disappearance of the ten tribes of Israel, the destruction of Judah and the final deportation of the Jews to exile is, WHO and WHERE is God? It is these two questions that the book of Lamentations (among other interesting lessons) strives to answer. Let us look at the question of where and later we will look at the question of who.

Where is God?

The question of where God that I assume is one of the two questions that the book of lamentations asks is not a question that inquires where God might be hiding. The Lament of where is God is more of an exclamation than it is the kind of question one would ask in a hide and seek situation. The Lament is not that people are seeking the face of God but rather that the people amidst disaster are wondering how all that has happened can happen in the presence of God?

Old Testament theology is a story of a covenantal relationship between a particular people and a particular God. Israel (Judah and the ten tribes) have a covenant with God and from a Deuteronomic perspective, it has a retributive (obey and be blessed or disobey and be cursed) base. However, a serious study of the Old Testament will reveal that as prophets manifest and events throughout the nation’s experience unfold, another type of covenant is indirectly installed in which the stipulations are; whatever Israel-the elect of Yahweh does, Yahweh will always be with and on their side.

I will address the issue of covenants in preceding introductions, for now, what we need to understand is that; It is from this covenantal relations that the Lament question where God is. Understanding that the communal laments’ question, therefore, is about the contradictory absence of Yahweh in their predicament (2:1-9). The absence of God is presented in chapter one and chapter two but evidenced in two forms. God is absent in the sense that Zion the home of Yahweh for the first time lacks a comforter (1: 2, 9, 17). Yahweh is the absent comforter in the time of pain to the extent that his own people would consider enemy-states to play the role of a comforter (1: 2, 12, 19).

The second aspect of God’s absence as presented in the book of lamentations is his lack of ‘Looking’ and ‘Seeing’. In all that the elect covenantal people suffered, God saw nothing and looked at no struggle of his beloved. The tragedy of God’s people has passed the all-seeing God and he has not looked at their suffering (1: 9, 11, 20); since this is technically impossible for the God of Israel but again a reality in their present experience, then the only possible explanation for this is his absence. In the theology of Israel, both divine presence and absence are due to particular behaviours of the community. God is ‘present’, based on how righteous the community has been and his absence is in many incidences attributed to either individual or corporate sin (Isaiah 59:1-2).

Divine absence lamented in the book of lamentations is not one that mourns the desertion of God’s people by God due to sin. The people in these laments have no defence at all, they are absolutely guilty; however, their lament is in the conundrum before them of the possible-impossible at hand. A God who promised never to leave nor forget his own (Isaiah 49:14-19) has actually vanished and a God who is omnipresent (Psalm 139:7-12) is absent. How could this be possible and where is this God? Is the lament. The question is not WHY (Psalm 22:1-2) but WHERE? In other words it looks like, while the why-divine absence can be fixed, the where-divine absence cannot.

The theological and philosophical question raised in this lament is, how does one feel and experience divine-absence amidst divine-omnipresence? An absence in presence is what I earlier termed as the possible-impossible. Prophet Isaiah in comforting the lamentors in this confusion retorted that God says; “For a brief moment I forsook you, but with great compassion I will gather you. In overflowing wrath for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you, says the LORD, your Redeemer.” (Isaiah 54:7-8 RSV). According to what happened to Isreal it looks like the absence of God is not lamented so much because he hasn’t helped them, but it is a participatory absence in which God himself has contributed to their woes.

This helps us modern readers and Christians to contemplate our conclusions on divine-absence; what do we always mean when we conclude that God is absent? Are we saying the following?

• evil cannot happen to us in his presence,
• evil happened to us because he was absent or
• His absence was the major evil that opened the door to all our sufferings?

If there is a moment when is absent, where does this leave his omnipresence natural attribute and what does this make him, therefore? How we answer these questions helps us reflect on our theological understanding of the God we worship. The Israelites in the Lamentations experienced pain and loss that demonstrated it was not about punishment for their sin, but rather a shift in the attitude of Yahweh towards them. It was not that God was absent, but rather, they realised for some reason and for the first time in their history Yahweh was reviewing his relationship with them. It was not that he was giving up on them but instead breaking the exclusiveness of Israel and launching a new inclusive Israel by scattering the existing one.

It is this that makes the exile the fourth major event of the Bible. The exile is when the omnipresent God is absent. There moments in my life that I have felt God ‘to be absent’ in my life. While from a moral perspective my iniquity might drive God away absent in me-the culprit (not elsewhere including where I am), from a theological perspective the absence of God communicates a mission beyond my container. And for those who insist God is absent must be informed that all things (animate and inanimate) have their being and existence due to God’s presence (Acts 17:28, Colossians 1:17). Without him or outside him is nothing. Next I will handle the second question of the Lament.

God bless you I invoke TRUTH, WISDOM, and FAITH (2Tim 2:7)

Priest TIM WHITE (+256-775 822833 for further inquiries)

iTiS Well of Worship Fellowship (John 4:24)

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