Today’s
Scripture Reading (May 21, 2017): Lamentations 5
In
1775, the Second Continental Congress proclaimed a National Day of Prayer and
Fasting to be observed on July 20, 1775.
Tension had been rising between the North American Colonies and England for the
better part of a decade over the control of taxation monies raised in North
America. And in 1775, Congress seems to have wanted to declare a pause. The first
shots of the American War of Independence
had already been fired, but an American Declaration
of Independence was still almost a year away. In the midst of this conflict, the
leaders of the English Colonies made this declaration.
This Congress, therefore considering the present
critical, alarming and calamitous state of these Colonies, do earnestly recommend
that, Thursday, the twentieth day of July next, be observed by the inhabitants
of all the English Colonies on this Continent, as a day of publick (sic)
humiliation, fasting and prayer; that we may, with united hearts and voices,
unfeignedly confess and deplore our many sins, and offer up our joint
supplications to the all-wise, omnipotent, and merciful Disposer of all events;
humbly beseeching him to forgive our iniquities, to remove our present
calamities, to avert those desolating judgments with which we are threatened,
and to bless our rightful Sovereign, King George the Third, and inspire him
with wisdom to discern and pursue the true interest of all his subjects, that a
speedy end may be put to the civil discord between Great Britain and the
American Colonies.
Of
course, the civil discord did not end. The War of Independence would last another
eight years before the two sides would come to an agreement, and the United
States could actually claim the independence
that they declared in 1776. Sometimes, we seem to have to move through the
process before we can recognize the extent of our sins and obtain the mercy of
our God.
Lamentations
5 is of a different character than the
other four chapters of the book. The final
chapter of the book is not a national dirge, which probably best
describes Lamentations 1-4. This is a declaration
of a national prayer for Judah. That God would look down on the destruction of
his people; that he would see and have mercy on them.
God
did have mercy, but that mercy did not lead to an immediate cessation of the
exile of the people for whom Jeremiah was praying. The sins of the people had
led them to this moment, and the exile would end, but not in this generation. It
would be seventy more years before the first of the people began to return from
Babylon to Judah. God’s forgiveness of his people was immediate, but his mercy
had to be worked out through a process that meant the nation would spend
seventy years in a strange land. And in
that time, hopefully, break the habits
that had made necessary this day of prayer in the first place.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Ezekiel
26
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