Judah and its city and temple were in the state they were in because of their own sin. This was a reality they had to face up to, but when they did—as hard as that reality was—there was hope for them.

I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to say that as a church living in the modern world, we don’t really know what to do with a book like Lamentations. Traditionally, the book has been read in the Christian church during Holy Week. But unless you keep the church calendar, I doubt you have read the book of Lamentations on an annual basis every Easter season. If you read through the Bible each year, then you will have read it at some point in the year, but I wonder if you’ve known how to read it properly, how to understand it, how to set it within the Bible’s grand storyline, and even what to do in response to reading it.

Perhaps we don’t know what to do with it because our surrounding culture is a culture addicted to hedonism, to pleasure seeking. Tech­nology and social media also mean we don’t meditate on anything for more than a few seconds, never mind the topic of lament. We’ve all seen images of bloodshed and war on the news, but have they caused us to stop and offer up a prayer of lament? A technological age addicted to clicking, swiping, and scrolling doesn’t lend itself to lamenting. Our culture is averse to any serious engagement with sin and death, with suffering and sorrow, and I think this has affected Christians more than we might like to think. We don’t really know what to do with a book like Lamentations, which is full of relentless lament. If we’re honest, lament is a lost discipline in the church at large. (Mark Vroegop’s book Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy is a helpful corrective.)

And yet God wants his people to lament. It’s why he has dedicated a whole book in the Christian Scripture to this one subject—Lamentations—a book of laments. As such, it is a place to begin to learn how to lament.

The early church father Athanasius said, “The Scriptures speaks to us; but the Psalms speak for us.”¹ I think that Lamentations does both—it speaks to us about lament, but it also speaks for us when we experience something terrible that causes us to lament.

As we begin this study on the book of Lamentations, let me invite you to learn from this book of laments so that you might know how to lament for the times when you will need to lament.

Let’s consider a couple of things as we begin:

Pathos (The Feel of Lamentations)

Lamentations is full of pathos—it’s full of emotion. One of the most moving books in the Bible, it serves as a fitting complement to Job or some of the psalms of lament.

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