Lent 2025 Day 38: Thu 17 Apr
Lamentations 3:22-23
22 Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
23 They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
“I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of the Lord’s wrath” is the very cheerful beginning of this chapter in Lamentation, and the tone continues quite similar for most of the section, until the words for today.
I am reminded of what I previously said about wrath (Day 16), but also of the words of that great preacher George MacDonald: “When evil, which alone is consumable, shall have passed away in his fire from the dwellers in the immovable kingdom, the nature of man shall look the nature of God in the face”. In the tradition of some great Church Fathers, he recognises the nature of God as one who purifies us, healing us until we are ready to come face to face with the One in whose image we were created.
So it is that the man in his affliction comes to learn that what God was doing to him (which he describes with some quite uncomfortable imagery) was not punishment, but rather correction. The fact he is not himself consumed is evidence that the chaff has been burned away (Matthew 3:12), or the mixture refined into pure silver (Malachi 3:3).
So it is with us: God calls us to walk alongside Jesus, but sometimes we get off the beaten path and cover ourselves in mud, or get cut by bramble, and have to be scrubbed clean and have our wounds disinfected before we can go back to doing what we were meant to do in the first place.
Loving God, guide us away from your refining fire through Word and Sacrament, but should we fail, may we still praise Your faithfulness in the crucible.
2:28:27 Mache dich, mein Herze, rein (Arie)
65. Aria B (Chorus I)
Make yourself pure, my heart,
I want to bury Jesus myself.
For from now on he shall have in me,
forever and ever,
his sweet rest.
World, get out, let Jesus in!
66a. Evangelist And Joseph took the body, and wrapped it in a pure shroud, and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had carved out of a single rock, and rolled a large stone before the opening of the tomb and went away. But Mary Magdalene and the other Marys were there, and they sat opposite the tomb. On the next day, that followed after the Sabbath day, the high priests and Pharisees came all together to Pilate and said:
Ends at 2:35:13
Paul