The Public Square is Never Naked: The Inescapable Consequences of Covenant Sin Text: Lamentations 1:8
Introduction: The Myth of the Neutral Garment
We live in an age that desperately wants to believe in a particular kind of public magic. The central illusion, the foundational lie upon which our entire secular project is built, is the idea that a society can be religiously neutral. The high priests of this cult preach that we can remove God from our laws, our schools, and our town squares, and what will be left is a clean, sterile, and value-free space. They imagine that when you take off the robe of Christian morality, the body politic will be left in a state of enlightened, rational nakedness, free to choose its own attire from a glorious catalog of personal preferences.
But this is a profound and disastrous delusion. The public square is never naked. When a nation throws off the robes of righteousness, it is not left neutral; it is left exposed. It is left shameful, despised, and unclean. It has not achieved autonomy; it has achieved public disgrace. This is because God has structured the world in such a way that covenant is inescapable. Every nation, every city, every people is in a covenant relationship with God, whether they acknowledge it or not. They are either in covenant with Him through obedience, which brings blessing, or they are in covenant with Him through rebellion, which brings curses. There is no third option.
The book of Lamentations is God's inspired post-mortem on a society that tried to find that third option. Jerusalem, the holy city, the wife of Yahweh, decided she wanted a divorce. She pursued other lovers, flirted with other gods, and adopted the idolatrous fashions of the surrounding cultures. She thought she could take off her wedding garments, the law of God, and still be honored and respected. But Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, is here to tell us what actually happens when a covenant people sins grievously. The result is not liberation, but lamentation. The result is not freedom, but filthiness and public shame.
This verse before us today is a compact summary of the logic of covenantal collapse. It shows us the cause, the effect, and the resulting reaction. It is a diagnosis that is as relevant to Washington D.C., London, or Moscow today as it was to Jerusalem in the sixth century B.C. We must attend to it, because our society is busy trying on the same filthy garments, and we are beginning to smell the same stench of death.
The Text
Jerusalem sinned greatly;
Therefore she has become an impure thing.
All who honored her despise her
Because they have seen her nakedness;
Even she herself sighs and turns away.
(Lamentations 1:8 LSB)
The Grievous Cause (v. 8a)
The verse begins with the root of the entire disaster, the foundational reason for the tears of the prophet and the ruin of the city.
"Jerusalem sinned greatly;" (Lamentations 1:8a)
The Hebrew is emphatic. It is literally "a sin, she sinned." This is not a minor infraction, a slip-up, a moment of poor judgment. This was high-handed, persistent, and flagrant rebellion. This was apostasy. Jerusalem was God's bride, and she had become a whore. She had taken the gifts her husband had given her, the temple, the law, the priesthood, the land flowing with milk and honey, and she had used them to solicit the attention of pagan gods. She had filled the high places with idols and the valleys with the smoke of child sacrifice (Jer. 7:31). This was not just individual sin, though it was that. It was corporate, institutionalized, and national sin. The leadership, the priests, the prophets, and the people were all complicit.
We must recover this biblical category of corporate sin. Modern evangelicalism, steeped in the soupy individualism of our age, wants to reduce all sin to the level of personal peccadilloes. We think that if we have our personal quiet time and don't kick the cat, we are doing well. But the Bible speaks of nations and peoples having a corporate character, a collective responsibility before God. When a nation legalizes the slaughter of its unborn, that is not just a collection of individual sins; it is a national sin. When a nation redefines the bedrock institution of marriage, an institution God defined at creation, that is a national sin. When a nation's leaders lie, steal, and promote debauchery, that is a national sin. Jerusalem had a long and sordid charge sheet, and the Lord, acting as the prosecuting attorney in His own covenant lawsuit, had found her guilty.
The sin was "great" because of the light she had been given. To whom much is given, much is required (Luke 12:48). Sodom and Gomorrah were judged for their wickedness, but their sin was not as great as Jerusalem's. Why? Because Sodom did not have the law of Moses. Gomorrah did not have the temple of Solomon. Tyre and Sidon did not have the prophets of God. Jerusalem had been married to God Himself, and her adultery was therefore an infinitely greater evil. This is a sober warning for us in the West, who have been positively drenched in gospel light for centuries. Our sin is therefore a greater sin, and our judgment, if we do not repent, will be a greater judgment.
The Inevitable Consequence (v. 8b)
The sin leads directly, and logically, to a change in her status. The relationship between the clauses is one of stark cause and effect.
"Therefore she has become an impure thing." (Lamentations 1:8b LSB)
The word for "impure thing" can refer to the uncleanness of a menstruating woman. It signifies something that is ceremonially and morally defiled, something to be removed, set apart, and avoided. She who was set apart for holiness has now been set apart for filthiness. Notice the verb: she "has become." Her sin was not just an action; it was transformative. It changed her nature. She didn't just do unclean things; she became an unclean thing.
This is the logic of sin. Sin is never static. It is always corrupting, always spreading, always defiling. You cannot dabble in wickedness and keep your garments clean. You cannot invite a little bit of idolatry into the house and expect the rest of the rooms to stay pure. Sin is a spiritual gangrene. Jerusalem thought she could be a little bit pagan and a little bit Yahwist. She wanted to have the temple on Sunday and the Baal worship on Monday. But God does not do timeshares. Her syncretism did not make paganism holier; it made Jerusalem filthy. She became a "thing," an object of disgust, because she had abandoned her personhood as defined by her relationship to her covenant Lord.
This is what our culture refuses to see. It believes it can embrace sexual perversion, greed, envy, and rebellion and still remain a "good" society. But it is impossible. By embracing these things, we are becoming them. We are becoming an impure thing, a society that sensible people instinctively want to keep their distance from.
The Public Disgrace (v. 8c-d)
The internal corruption naturally leads to external disgrace. Her impurity is not a private matter; it becomes a public spectacle.
"All who honored her despise her Because they have seen her nakedness;" (Lamentations 1:8c-d LSB)
Previously, Jerusalem had honor. The nations looked to her. The Queen of Sheba came to marvel at the wisdom and wealth of Solomon's kingdom. She was supposed to be a city on a hill, a light to the Gentiles, showcasing the blessings that flow from obedience to the one true God. But now, that honor has curdled into contempt. Those same nations now despise her. The word "despise" means to hold in contempt, to count as worthless.
And why? "Because they have seen her nakedness." This is covenantal language, straight from the garden. Before the fall, Adam and Eve were naked and not ashamed. Their nakedness was a sign of their innocence, their open and transparent fellowship with God and each other. After the fall, their first reaction was to see their nakedness and feel shame. They frantically stitched together fig leaves, the first pathetic act of human self-justification. Nakedness, after sin, is a symbol of guilt, vulnerability, and utter disgrace.
God had warned Israel this would happen. In the covenant lawsuit passages of the prophets, God repeatedly threatens to strip his adulterous wife and expose her nakedness to her lovers (Ezekiel 16:37-39, Hosea 2:10). This is exactly what has happened. Her lovers, the pagan nations she courted and whose gods she worshipped, are the very ones who now see her stripped bare by the Babylonians. They see her weakness, her poverty, her utter humiliation. The sin that was committed in secret is now exposed on the world stage. God has a way of making sure that what is whispered in the closet is eventually shouted from the housetops.
The Internal Shame (v. 8e)
The external disgrace is matched by an internal realization of her own wretched condition.
"Even she herself sighs and turns away." (Lamentations 1:8e LSB)
The party is over. The thrill of the affair is gone, and now, in the gray morning of judgment, she sees herself for what she is. The sigh is one of deep grief, of hopeless resignation. She turns away, unable to bear the sight of her own reflection. This is the endpoint of sin. It promises excitement, freedom, and self-fulfillment, but it delivers only shame, bondage, and self-loathing.
She cannot even look her despisers in the eye. She turns away in shame. This is the conviction of guilt. Before true repentance can happen, there must be this recognition of the ugliness of our sin. There is no shortcut to restoration that bypasses this valley of shame. Our modern therapeutic culture wants to medicate this feeling away. It tells us the problem is not our sin but our low self-esteem. But the Bible tells us that a godly sorrow, a deep sigh over our own nakedness, is the necessary prelude to grace (2 Corinthians 7:10).
The Gospel in the Ruins
This is a bleak picture. A city in ruins, a people disgraced, a covenant broken. If this were the end of the story, it would be nothing but despair. But this is not the end. This entire scene of judgment is designed to make us look for a better covenant, a better husband, a better savior. The nakedness of Jerusalem points us to the nakedness of Christ.
On the cross, Jesus Christ was stripped naked. He was publicly shamed. All who had honored Him now despised Him. He bore the full, unmitigated consequence of sin. But there was a crucial difference. Jerusalem was naked because of her own sin. Christ was naked because He was bearing ours. He took Jerusalem's impurity upon Himself. He became an "impure thing" for us. "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21).
He endured the ultimate covenant curse so that we might receive the ultimate covenant blessing. He was exposed so that we might be clothed. God looks at the believing sinner, who is by nature naked and shameful, and He does not see our filth. He sees the perfect, spotless robes of His Son's righteousness. This is the great exchange of the gospel.
Therefore, the message of Lamentations to us is twofold. First, it is a terrifying warning. Do not think you can sin with impunity. Do not think that God grades on a curve. Corporate sin brings corporate judgment. A nation that abandons God will be stripped naked and put to shame. We are seeing the beginning of this in our own land. We must not be surprised by it, and we must call our nation to repentance.
But second, it is a glorious invitation. Do you feel your own nakedness? Do you sigh over your sin? Do you turn away in shame? Good. That is the first step. Now, turn to the one who was shamed for you. Turn to Christ. He does not despise you. He invites you. He offers to take your filthy rags of self-righteousness and clothe you in a garment of pure, brilliant white, a garment of grace that can never be stained or removed. He is the only hope for naked sinners, and He is the only hope for a naked and shameful nation.