Lamentations 3:49-66: a reflection

49My eye pours down and doesn’t cease, without any intermission, 50until the LORD looks down, and sees from heaven. 51My eye affects my soul, because of all the daughters of my city. 52They have chased me relentlessly like a bird, those who are my enemies without cause. 53They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and have cast a stone on me. 54Waters flowed over my head. I said, “I am cut off.” 55I called on your name, LORD, out of the lowest dungeon. 56You heard my voice: “Don’t hide your ear from my sighing, and my cry.” 57You came near in the day that I called on you. You said, “Don’t be afraid.” 58Lord, you have pleaded the causes of my soul. You have redeemed my life. 59LORD, you have seen my wrong. Judge my cause. 60You have seen all their vengeance and all their plans against me. 61You have heard their reproach, LORD, and all their plans against me, 62the lips of those that rose up against me, and their plots against me all day long. 63You see their sitting down and their rising up. I am their song. 64You will pay them back, LORD, according to the work of their hands. 65You will give them hardness of heart, your curse to them. 66You will pursue them in anger, and destroy them from under the heavens of the LORD.

In the middle of Lamentations, a book of grief over a ruined city, comes a personal memory of rescue. The writer recalls crying out from the depths: I called on your name, LORD, from the depths of the pit. And then the answer he received: You heard my plea; you came near when I called on you and said, Do not fear. You have taken up my cause; you have redeemed my life. From the lowest place, he called, and God drew near.

Notice the movement in these verses. It begins in the pit, the lowest place, waters closing over his head, the sense of being cut off. From there he calls on God's name. And God's response is not distant or delayed in the memory; you came near, he says, in the day I called. God did not answer from far off; he came near, close, and spoke the words the frightened heart most needs: Do not fear. And then, you have redeemed my life. God drew near to the one in the pit and rescued him.

That is a pattern of hope to hold when you are in your own depths. From the lowest pit, the place where you feel cut off and overwhelmed, you can call on the name of the Lord, as this sufferer did. And the God he describes is one who comes near to those who call from the depths, who speaks Do not fear to the frightened, who takes up our cause and redeems our life. When you are in the pit, do not stay silent in your despair. Call on his name. He is a God who draws near to the one who cries out, and says, Do not fear.

Lord, from the depths of the pit the sufferer called on your name, and you came near and said, Do not fear; you redeemed his life. When I am in my own depths, cut off and overwhelmed, help me call on your name rather than stay silent in despair. Draw near to me as you drew near to him, speak your Do not fear to my frightened heart, and take up my cause. You are a God who comes near to those who cry out.