The Pain That Matters Text: Lamentations 1:12
Introduction: A Roadside Spectacle
We live in a soft age. Our generation has been thoroughly catechized by the therapeutic gospel, which teaches that God’s primary job is to affirm us, to make us feel good about ourselves, and to help us reach our full potential. In this sentimental framework, the God of the Old Testament is a profound embarrassment. He is too harsh, too judgmental, too full of wrath. And a text like Lamentations is particularly offensive. It is the raw, unfiltered cry of a people under the hammer of divine judgment. It is not a book that sells well in the pastel-colored Christian bookstores.
But the Bible is not concerned with our therapeutic sensibilities. It is concerned with reality. And the reality is that sin is a horrific cosmic treason, and God is a holy God who responds to such treason with a fierce and burning anger. To wish for a God without wrath is to wish for a God without righteousness. It is to wish for a universe where justice is a mirage and sin has no consequences. Such a universe is a lie, and the God of that universe is an idol carved from the block of our own wishful thinking.
Lamentations 1:12 places us on the side of a desolate road. Jerusalem, personified as a grieving widow, sits in the rubble of her own destruction. Her children are gone, her king is captive, her temple is a ruin. And as the nations pass by, going about their business, she cries out to them. This is not a private grief whispered into a pillow. It is a public spectacle. It is a divine object lesson for the whole world to see. God is not ashamed to discipline His people in the public square. And the lesson is this: if this is what God does to the green tree, what will He do to the dry?
This verse forces us to confront three realities our modern world wants to desperately forget: the reality of public shame, the reality of unique suffering, and the reality of divine agency in that suffering. This is strong medicine, but it is the only medicine that can cure us of our trivial view of sin and our domesticated view of God.
The Text
"Is it nothing to all you who pass this way? Look and see if there is any pain like my pain Which was dealt severely to me, Which Yahweh grieved me with on the day of His burning anger."
(Lamentations 1:12 LSB)
A Public Appeal (v. 12a)
The lament begins with a desperate question to the world:
"Is it nothing to all you who pass this way?" (Lamentations 1:12a)
Jerusalem is a roadside attraction. The caravans of the nations, the merchants, the travelers, are passing by the smoking ruins of what was once the glorious city of God. And her cry is one of astonishment. "Do you not see this? Does this spectacle mean nothing to you?" She is demanding that they stop and consider the meaning of her desolation. This is not just another city conquered in the endless geopolitical struggles of the ancient world. This is different. This is Yahweh’s city.
Our culture prizes privacy. We believe our pain is our own business. But in the biblical world, judgment for covenant-breaking is a public affair. God made His covenant with Israel before the eyes of the nations. He set them on a hill. Their obedience was to be a testimony to the world, and now their disobedience is also a testimony. God is putting His own reputation on the line. He is saying to the pagan world, "Look what I do to my own people when they rebel. Do not think for a moment that I will overlook your rebellion."
This is a rebuke to our casual indifference. We pass by the wreckage of broken lives, broken families, and broken churches, and we think it is "nothing to us." We see the consequences of sin all around us, and we shrug. But God intends for judgment to be a sermon. He intends for us to stop, to look, and to take it to heart. The ruin of Jerusalem was meant to be a terrifying warning to all who would trifle with a holy God. It is a call to the world to stop and consider the fact that God is not mocked.
A Unique Pain (v. 12b)
Next, Jerusalem insists on the uniqueness of her suffering.
"Look and see if there is any pain like my pain..." (Lamentations 1:12b LSB)
At first, this might sound like simple hyperbole. Surely other cities had been sacked. Other peoples had suffered the horrors of war. But Jerusalem’s claim is theologically precise. Her pain is unique because her calling was unique. No other nation had been brought into a marriage covenant with the living God. No other nation had been given the Law, the temple, the promises. Therefore, no other nation could experience the pain of covenantal abandonment.
The blessings of the covenant were unparalleled, and so the curses of the covenant were unparalleled. This is the principle of "to whom much is given, much is required." The pain is not just the physical destruction; it is the spiritual agony of being forsaken by God Himself. It is the pain of a wife cast out by her husband. It is the pain of knowing that the one who once blessed you is now the very one who is cursing you. The pagan nations suffered at the hands of their enemies, but Israel was suffering at the hands of her God. This is a sorrow of a completely different kind. It is a sorrow that no other nation on earth could comprehend.
The Unflinching Source (v. 12c)
Here we come to the heart of the matter, the truth that makes our modern ears ring. Who is responsible for this unparalleled pain?
"Which was dealt severely to me, Which Yahweh grieved me with on the day of His burning anger." (Lamentations 1:12c LSB)
There is no evasion here. There is no attempt to blame-shift. She does not say, "Look what the Babylonians did to me." She does not say, "This is the result of unfortunate geopolitical circumstances." She says, with brutal honesty, "Yahweh did this." The Lord Himself inflicted this grief. The Babylonians were merely the rod of His anger, the axe in His hand.
This is the central doctrine of theodicy that our generation cannot stomach: the absolute sovereignty of God over all things, including calamity. But for the saints in Scripture, this is not a source of terror but the very foundation of hope. If God is the one who dealt this blow, then He is the only one who can heal it. If this is the result of random chance or the brute power of Babylon, then there is no hope. But if this is the loving, albeit severe, discipline of a covenant-keeping Father, then there is a path to restoration.
And notice the reason: it was "on the day of His burning anger." This is not the arbitrary rage of a pagan deity. This is the judicial, righteous, holy anger of God against sin. For generations, Israel had provoked Him with idolatry, injustice, and spiritual adultery. He sent them prophets, warning after warning, but they would not listen. His anger is not a sudden outburst; it is the slow, patient, holy burn of a love that has been spurned. God’s wrath is His settled, righteous opposition to all that is evil. And because He is a good and just God, He must act on that opposition. The destruction of Jerusalem was not a failure of God’s love; it was the necessary expression of His holiness.
The Ultimate Spectacle
This entire scene on the roadside is a type. It is a shadow pointing forward to a greater reality. Jerusalem sits by the road, a spectacle of suffering for all who pass by. But centuries later, another would walk a road out of Jerusalem, carrying a cross, to become the ultimate spectacle of suffering.
Jesus Christ is the ultimate passer-by who did not consider this suffering "nothing." He saw the plight of Jerusalem, the plight of all humanity under the just wrath of God, and He did not simply look and continue on His way. He entered into it.
On the cross, the cry of Jerusalem finds its ultimate fulfillment. "Is there any pain like my pain?" No, there is not. For the pain that Jesus endured was not simply the pain of Roman nails or a thorny crown. It was the unique, unparalleled pain of bearing the full, undiluted, burning anger of Yahweh against the sins of His people. Jerusalem drank a cup of God’s wrath, but Jesus drank the entire ocean of it down to the dregs. He endured the infinite curse that was due to us.
On the cross, God was dealing severely with His own beloved Son. The Father, in a mystery we cannot fathom, grieved His Son on the day of His burning anger. Why? So that this day of burning anger would never have to fall on us who are in Him. Paul tells us that "He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Corinthians 5:21).
The cross is the ultimate roadside spectacle. And the question comes to every single one of us: "Is it nothing to you?" Do you pass by the cross of Jesus Christ with casual indifference? Do you see the Son of God, crushed under the weight of His Father’s wrath for your sin, and shrug your shoulders and continue on your way?
To do so is the greatest folly imaginable. For that day of burning anger that fell on Jerusalem, and fell with ultimate force upon the Son, will one day fall on all who are not sheltered in Him. The lament of Jerusalem is a warning. But the cross of Christ is an invitation. It is an invitation to see what your sin deserved, to see the holy wrath of God it provoked, and to see the infinite love of God that provided the substitute.
Do not pass this by. Stop. Look. And see that there is no pain like His pain, a pain He endured so that you might never have to. Flee to Him, hide in Him, and you will find that the day of His burning anger has been exchanged, for you, for an eternity of His burning love.