had to speak the next Sunday. This is what he chose to say:
“A Lamentation For Alex”
Text: Lamentations 3:22-24
Aim: To help the children of the congregation process their grief over the death of Alex *****.
Thesis: It is all right to feel sorrow now, but we won’t be sorry forever, because we can remember that God loves us and that we have a hope of heaven.
Introduction:
God wants us to realize how much He loves us, so He gave us the Bible. There are so many wonderful things we would not know or understand if we didn’t have this precious gift.
We talk about the Bible as though it was only one book, but really it is made up of many books. For example, there are four different books just to tell us about the life of Jesus – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
God has given us 66 books of the Bible in all, and within those Scriptures there is a book to meet every need, a message to address every situation we will face, a way to express every emotion we will experience.
In the Bible there are books of inspiration and books of education; books of history and books of prophecy; there is a book written just for young people, to tell them how to be happy and live a good life, and there is a book written just for older people, to help them be satisfied and content; there are books that explain where we came from and why we are here on this earth, and books that tell where we are going and all the marvelous blessings God has planned for us in heaven.
And because in the Bible there is a book to address every circumstance we may encounter, there is also a book of sorrow. In fact, the very name of the book expresses sadness: it is the book of Lamentations.
Why do we need a book about sadness? Well, Jesus told us that “In this world you will have sorrows” and truer words were never spoken. Our world is filled with things that can make us sad: we can get sick and feel bad; people can say ugly things to us and hurt our feelings; we can have accidents that skin our knee or bump our elbow or even break a bone. Because this world has been broken by sin, we understand accidents can happen anywhere, and at any time, and they can happen to anyone.
There are all sorts of things in this world that can make us sad. And that is why the Bible has a book of sadness – it is called Lamentations because a “lament” is an expression of sorrow. A “lament” is a statement of grief that is written down and set to poetry, so that the people who are sad can think about what makes them feel bad, and can tell others how they feel.
People can be sad about many things, but we are especially sorry when someone we love has died. For example, David made a lament when he heard that his good friend Jonathan had died. The gospel of Luke (23:27) tells us many people “lamented” when Jesus died on the cross.
The book of Lamentations was written because the people of Israel had suffered one of the worst things anyone can imagine: their nation had been invaded. An awful army from Babylon had marched in and had torn down their Temple – the most sacred building in their nation, the very place where they gathered to worship God. And so naturally the people were filled with sorrow that such a terrible thing had happened.
And one of the prophets wrote the book of Lamentations to tell others how sad he felt. I think one of the reasons God included Lamentations in the Bible is to let us know that when we are very sad, it is healthy to tell people how we feel. It is ok to cry, and it is ok to tell people that we are sad. It is not wrong to experience that emotion. Even Jesus cried and was sad when his good friend Lazarus died. But then everyone was happy again, because Jesus raised Lazarus up and brought him back to life, just like one day the Lord has promised we will have a new life in heaven.
This is our time of Lamentation here at ****, because we have suffered an awful loss. Most of you already know there was an accident in our parking lot last Sunday night. An older woman got confused and made a mistake – she thought she was stepping on her brake, but instead her foot was on her gas pedal, so she accidentally backed over Miss ****** and seven-year-old Alexandria *****as they were walking across the parking lot.
Miss **** had a broken bone, and some bad scrapes and bruises. Those are painful now, but they will get better. But little Alex was hurt very badly, so badly that she couldn’t recover and live a happy life, and last Friday night she died and went to heaven.
So now we are sad because we have lost a good friend. And we are especially sad because this accident happened here in our parking lot, outside the very place where we gather to worship God. Oh, we remember that Jesus warned us that “In this world you will have sorrows” and we know there are many things in this world that can make us sad, and we understand accidents can happen anywhere, and at any time, and they can happen to anyone. But still, it seems even worse when an accident happens in here, and to one of our friends, and right after we had all enjoyed a meal and a good time together. And so, this morning, we lament.
But even though I am sad, I also remember that Alex loved to be here and to learn about Jesus. She was so thankful that her teacher and friend Miss **** brought her to church, and explained to her how much God loved her, and taught Alex that Jesus died on the Cross for her. In fact, you may remember several months Alex asked me to tell you all that she wanted to be a child of this church, and I brought her up to the front so everyone could know she loved Jesus and was going to be part of our church family. She had many friends here, and we all loved Alex because she was so sweet and kind and good.
Last June Alex was in my “Kid’s Camp” – and that was a new experience for her. She had never been to a Christian camp before, and she had such a good time playing and swimming and singing around the campfire and learning more about God. On Saturday at “Kid’s Camp” we laid out the slip and slide, and all the children got to slide on it. Many of the young people would run and jump headfirst just as hard as they could, but I remember Alex would approach the slide more carefully, running with little steps, in such a dainty way. But she enjoyed it just as much as any of the other kids! In fact, after playing on the slip and slide she came up to me all wet and soapy and told me in a very excited voice what a wonderful time she was having. That meant a great deal to me, because many of you know that Alex could be shy and quiet. So when Alex spoke up like that I knew she was very, very happy to be at camp, and I am glad I have that memory in my heart. And every time I think of that memory, I will be both sad and happy.
The prophet who wrote the book of Lamentations does a very unusual thing: he writes out his grief in the form of an acrostic. That means it is alphabetical: the first verse starts with “A” (in Hebrew), the second verse starts with “B”, the third verse starts with “C”, and so on, until he had gone to the very end of the Hebrew alphabet. Then, in Chapter 2, he does it again: he starts with “A” a second time and goes all the way to the end of the alphabet. Then, he does it again in Chapter 3, going all the way from “A” to “Z.” Then, he goes all the way through the alphabet once more in Chapter 4. Now, why do you suppose, if someone wanted to write out his sadness, he would do so by repeating his “A B C’s”?
Maybe he wrote out his grief in the form of the alphabet so we would remember that all of us, little people and big people, will sometimes feel sad and would need to talk about it. After all, the very first thing we learn when we go to school is our “A B C’s” so perhaps he wanted to make it easy for everyone to understand how to share our sorrow.
Maybe he repeats the alphabet four times because he understood that when we are sad, sometimes it doesn’t help to talk about it only once – we might need to tell our story over and over and over and over – 4 times, not just one!
Or maybe the book of Lamentations in written in alphabetical form so that we would realize that even though sometimes we may feel very sad, so sad that we may have to go all the way from “A” to “Z” with our grief, that if we DO keep going, if we tell other people how we feel, and tell God in our prayers how we feel, at last we WILL get to the “Z”, that our sadness WILL come to an end. When we are sad it often seems like that bad feeling will last forever, but it won’t. And by the time we have gone from “A” to “Z” in our sorrow we can remember how much God loves us and that thought will make us feel better. Psalm 30:5 tells us “Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.”
I think that must be what happened to the prophet who wrote the book of Lamentations, because in the middle of the third chapter of writing out his sadness, after he had already gone from “A” to “Z” twice and was halfway through the alphabet a third time, he finally remembers something: GOD STILL LOVES US! After telling others about his feelings he realized,
”Even though I’m sad now, and even though bad things have happened in my life, God hasn’t changed. He still loves me, and cares for me, and hasn’t forgotten me.”
How do I know that’s what he remembered? Because he wrote in Chapter 3: “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore I will hope in him” (verses 22-24).
That is one of the greatest promises of the Bible, and it is even more precious to us because it comes right in the middle of one of the saddest books of the Bible! It is a tremendous affirmation that we can trust in God’s goodness, and find hope in his promises, even though we may be experiencing a very sad time.
“The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore I will hope in him.” Do you know why he uses the word “Hope”? Because hope is like a pair of binoculars. Have you ever looked through binoculars? They make it possible for us to see things far away, things that we couldn’t see on our own. Hope it like that – it enables us to look far past the present and instead see the future. When something bad happens, Christians don’t deny our sadness, or minimize it, or avoid it, or try to cover it up. BUT – our hope reminds us to look beyond right now, to look far, far down to the end of the road, to the time when we will be with God in heaven. When we have hope, even if what we are experiencing now is not good, we can still be happy, because our hope lets us we know that later on God has something better planned that WILL be very, very good.
I am SO glad Alex had that hope. She believed in Jesus, and she loved to hear about heaven. She talked with Miss ***** about it often, and just a week ago she even had a dream about it. Alex was thrilled to know that God has prepared a beautiful place where there will never be any pain or suffering or tears, but where we can always be joyful and happy. And when I think about how excited Alex was to be at Camp, where she could sing and play and learn about God, then I know she is just absolutely overjoyed to be with Him up in heaven.
Because the book of Lamentations reminds us that we can have that hope, even when we are sad, and so that we can affirm our faith in the wonderful promise of heaven, I’m going to invite you to sing that song. Mr. *****, would you come up right now and lead us in “The Steadfast Love of the Lord”?
SING “The Steadfast Love of the Lord
DW