“HOW could this happen?” Brad Jersak

“HOW could this happen?”

The first words that burst from a traumatized heart are often either “Why?!” or “How?!” How could such a thing happen?! To us, to me, to my family, to my city?! When we witness devastating events or receive devastating news, the how and the why give voice to our shock. When we cannot get our heads around the tragedies and evils we experience, even second-hand, our hearts cry out, “How could this happen?”

We call these howls of the afflicted “lament.” And I take some comfort that the Hebrew Scriptures have a book titled “Lamentations” that give voice to those in misery. In fact, the Hebrew title comes from the book’s first word, eichah, “HOW?!”

• How! – lonely sits the city!
  • Once full of people,
• HOW is she now become a widow!
  • She who was great among the nations,
  • a princess among the provinces,
• HOW is she now a vassal!
  • – Lamentations 1:1-5

“How” is also the first word of three out of Lamentation’s five songs (four of which are also acrostics, where each line starts with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet as if pondering the all-encompassing A to Z of the chaos and confusion of the siege and utter destruction of Jerusalem, its palace, and its temple.

Prayers of Protest

Judaism’s great distinctives in contrast to other religions and their Scriptures include (a) their capacity to acknowledge and record and remember their defeats, (b) their canonization of their prophets’ scathing denouncements of their nation’s sins, and (c) their boldness in questioning and accusing God, even in their liturgical hymns and Scriptures! In fact, these very factors became central the inspiration of the scribes who composed the Bible!

And unlike books like Job and most of the lament Psalms, the authors of the book of Lamentations “do not wait for God’s answer. They expect him to listen” (from Jacob L. Wright, Why the Bible Began). In this book, the voice of the Holy Spirit is revealed, not in platitudes or promises, but from the moaning queries of the complainants, who hold Yhwh to account!

God gives them permission (and even inspires them) to voice their complaint. To protest and wave their fist at heaven and demand, “How could you let this happen!?” and even “How you YOU do this to us?!”

God’s only word

In fact, literally, the only message we hear from God s three words spoken via a second-hand report. And they will only be able to hear those words because it is by first giving voice to our authentic lament that we begin to see a way forward, a way of hope. Here it comes, late in chapter 3:

• ⁵⁵ I called on your name, Lord,
•     from the depths of the pit.
• ⁵⁶ You heard my plea: “Do not close your ears
•     to my cry for relief.”
• ⁵⁷ You came near when I called you,
•     and you said, “Do not fear.”

Such an important biblical phrase, a promise that what looks like oblivion cannot and will not be the last word. It’s the phrase Gabriel uses in announcing Jesus’ conception. It’s the phrase Jesus chose in his resurrection appearances. And it’s more than “You should not fear.” It’s more generative than that… like, “Let there be light!” and there was light. Those words from God’s mouth have the power to dissipate fear.

Comfort ye, my people

According to Wright, in the Jewish calendar, communities chant the Book of HOW!? during the fast of Tisha be’Av, remembering the destruction described in those five songs. Then, on the following Sabbath, the Synagogue readings respond from Isaiah 40:

• 40 Comfort, comfort my people,
•     says your God.
• ² Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
•     and proclaim to her
• that her hard service has been completed,
•     that her sin has been paid for,
• that she has received from the Lord’s hand
•     double for all her sins.

Tragedies strike, evils occur, destruction and devastation visits, but it will not have the last word. The “How” is followed with words of comfort. And not only for Jerusalem or the Judean exiles, but for all New Covenant believers who hear the hope in the verses to follow:

• ³ A voice of one calling:
• “In the wilderness, prepare
•     the way for the Lord;
• make straight in the desert
•     a highway for our God.

Yes, we hear the prophet John the Forerunner announcing the arrival of Israel’s Messiah and the Lord of the world, our blessed Hope, the Lord Jesus Christ. In this world, we will experience troubles and trials, grief and loss, moaning and weeping… but that cannot and will not be the last word. The One who says, “Do not fear” speaks those words from eternity over all of time and over all our lives. Let’s put our hope in him and echo the words of hope from Lamentations 3:22-23:

• Because of the loving devotion of the LORD
• we are not consumed, for His mercies never fail. 
• They are new every morning;
• great is your faithfulness.

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