AP

Lamentations 2:11-12  My eyes fail from weeping, I am in torment within; my heart is poured out on the ground because my people are destroyed, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city.  They say to their mothers, “Where is bread and wine?” as they faint like the wounded in the streets of the city, as their lives ebb away in their mothers’ arms.

As we read Jeremiah’s passionate lamentation over the suffering of God’s Covenant People in Jerualem at the time of Nebuchadnezzar’s destrucion of the city in 586-587 BC, let our hearts go out to God’s faithful people in Noth Africa today, who are facing similar circumstances.  Our headline news today reminds us of Jeremiah’s prophecy back then, and we are moved to compassion and tears, and hopefully to constant and earnest prayer, for our brothers and sisters in Christ in these days.

With a similar response to that of Jeremiah, Jesus also wept over Jerusalem as he entered it for the last time during his earthly ministry, warning of its sacking by Roman Empore, Titus, in AD 70, saying, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing” (Luke 13:34),

One Day (soon?), our just and righteous Creator and King will come finally to Judge this God-denying world, but thankfully and mercifully, he has made provision for us in two gracious ways:

Frstly, he has given us adequate warnings (in the days of Noah, as well as in 586 BC and AD 70, to name just three), in order that that we might heed his warnings in time, and of what this Day would be like for all who might persist in rejecting him.

And secondly, in his great mercy, he has provided, in Jesus, his own beloved Son, a safe refuge from the coming wrath, ‘as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings’.  He does this, by bearing in himself all the punishment due to us, if we would but turn to him, in in repentance-and-faith.  “For since the message spoken through angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation?”  (Hebrews 2:2-3a)

– Bruce Christian