The Divine Deconstruction Text: Lamentations 2:6
Introduction: When God Tears Down His Own House
We live in an age that is allergic to the concept of divine judgment, particularly a judgment that begins, as the apostle Peter tells us, at the house of God. The modern evangelical mind, soft and sentimental, prefers a God who is a celestial therapist, a divine affirmer, a God who would never, ever do anything so severe as to tear down His own church. We want a God who builds up, who encourages, who restores. And He is all of that. But we have forgotten that our God is a consuming fire, and that He is jealous for His own glory. We have forgotten that sometimes the most gracious thing God can do is to take a wrecking ball to the corrupt structures we have built in His name.
Lamentations is a book that our generation desperately needs but rarely reads. It is the raw, unfiltered grief of a man watching the complete disintegration of his world. And there is no attempt to pretty it up. Jerusalem, the city of God, has become a charnel house. But the most jarring truth, the truth that Jeremiah hammers home again and again, is that this was not a tragic accident. This was not a geopolitical misfortune. This was the active, holy, violent judgment of God against His own covenant people. Yahweh did this. He gave the orders. He swung the hammer.
This verse before us is one of the most shocking in the entire book. It describes God not as a distant, permissive landlord, but as the primary actor in the demolition. He is not a passive observer; He is the one treating His own tabernacle, His own appointed meeting place, with violence. He is the one making sure the feasts and Sabbaths are forgotten. He is the one, in the heat of His anger, who spurns both king and priest. This is divine deconstruction. And we must understand it, because what God did to Israel then, He is more than willing to do to any church, any institution, any nation that trifles with His covenant and presumes upon His grace.
We must not read this as ancient history, safely cordoned off in the past. This is a description of the covenantal logic of God. When the thing that is supposed to represent God starts to misrepresent Him, God Himself will remove it. He will not have His name profaned by corrupt worship, corrupt leadership, or a corrupt people. He will tear it down to the foundations, so that on that cleared ground, He might build again.
The Text
And He has violently treated His tabernacle like a garden booth;
He has brought His appointed meeting place to ruin.
Yahweh has caused to be forgotten
The appointed time and sabbath in Zion,
And He has spurned king and priest
In the indignation of His anger.
(Lamentations 2:6 LSB)
The Ruin of Worship (v. 6a)
The first thing to fall under this divine judgment is the central symbol of their entire relationship with God.
"And He has violently treated His tabernacle like a garden booth; He has brought His appointed meeting place to ruin."
The language here is brutal. The word for "violently treated" means to tear away, to lay waste. God is the subject of the verb. He did this. And what did He tear away? His tabernacle. This refers to the Temple, the glorious structure built by Solomon, the place where heaven and earth met, the dwelling place of the Most High. This was the center of their worship, their identity, their worldview.
And God treats it "like a garden booth." A garden booth was a flimsy, temporary shack that a farmer would throw together during the harvest to keep watch over his crops. It was disposable. After the harvest, it would be abandoned and left to rot. God is saying that this magnificent Temple, with its gold and cedar and intricate carvings, had become, in His eyes, as disposable as a shack in a cucumber patch. Why? Because the glory had departed. The substance was gone. They had the building, but they had lost the God of the building. They were going through the motions of the sacrifices, but their hearts were far from Him. The worship was corrupt, and so God judged the machinery of that worship.
He "brought His appointed meeting place to ruin." This was the place where God had promised to meet with His people. But when the people no longer come to meet with God in truth, but rather to use the meeting place as a talisman, as a good luck charm to ward off judgment while they continue in their sin, God Himself shuts it down. This is a terrifying lesson for the modern church. We can have our beautiful buildings, our slick programs, our perfectly produced worship services. But if we are not worshiping in spirit and in truth, if we are tolerating sin and preaching a truncated gospel, God sees our cathedrals as nothing more than garden booths, ripe for demolition.
The Erasure of the Covenant Calendar (v. 6b)
Next, God dismantles their sense of time, their liturgical rhythm, which was the very heartbeat of their covenant life.
"Yahweh has caused to be forgotten The appointed time and sabbath in Zion,"
This is a staggering statement. The appointed times, the moedim, were the great feasts of Israel: Passover, Pentecost, Tabernacles. The Sabbath was the weekly sign of the covenant, a reminder that they were God's people, set apart and sanctified by Him. This calendar was not just a series of holidays. It was the story of their redemption, rehearsed year after year. It structured their lives around God's mighty acts of salvation. It was the grammar of their covenant existence.
And Yahweh causes it to be forgotten. He does not simply allow it to be forgotten; He actively erases it. The Babylonians may have been the instruments, but God was the author of this holy amnesia. When the people forget the meaning of the Sabbath, God makes them forget the day of the Sabbath. When they go through the motions of the feasts without gratitude or repentance, God removes the feasts altogether. He will not have His holy days used as a cloak for unholy living.
This is a direct outworking of the covenant curses found in Deuteronomy. If you obey, you will be blessed in your coming in and your going out. But if you disobey, all these curses will come upon you. One of those curses is the complete disruption of the created and liturgical order. When a people's worship becomes hollow, God Himself will hollow out their calendar. He takes away the reminders of grace from those who have come to despise that grace.
The Rejection of Leadership (v. 6c)
Finally, the judgment falls upon the twin pillars of Israel's leadership: the civil and the religious authorities.
"And He has spurned king and priest In the indignation of His anger."
The word "spurned" means to despise, to reject with contempt. And notice who is being spurned. The king, the head of the civil order, the one meant to execute justice and righteousness. And the priest, the head of the religious order, the one meant to teach the law and mediate between God and the people. God rejects them both.
Why? Because the corruption had started at the top. The kings had led the people into idolatry. The priests had failed to teach the law and had profaned the holy things of God. Ezekiel and Jeremiah are filled with indictments against these corrupt shepherds who fed themselves and not the flock. When the leadership of a nation, both in the state house and the church house, becomes corrupt, God's judgment is particularly fierce. He holds them to a higher standard. They had been given the responsibility to lead the people in righteousness, and instead, they led them into ruin.
And this is done "in the indignation of His anger." This is not a mild displeasure. This is holy fury. This is the righteous wrath of a covenant-making and covenant-keeping God whose covenant has been trampled underfoot by the very men sworn to uphold it. God is not a stoic philosopher. He is a jealous God, and His jealousy burns hottest against unfaithful leaders. He spurns them. He casts them aside as worthless. Their titles, their offices, their prestige mean nothing to Him when their hearts and their actions are bent toward evil.
Conclusion: The Logic of Holy Ruin
So what are we to do with a passage like this? First, we must tremble. We must recover a holy fear of the God who does such things in righteousness. We serve a God who loves His church so much that He will discipline her, even severely, to make her holy. He will not tolerate the mixture of the sacred and the profane. He will not allow His house to remain a den of robbers. If we are playing games with God, we need to understand that He is not playing games with us.
Second, we must understand the covenantal logic. God's judgments are not arbitrary. They are the promised consequences of covenant unfaithfulness. The destruction of the temple, the forgetting of the Sabbath, the spurning of the leaders, all of this was written down beforehand in the fine print of the contract they signed with God at Sinai. God is simply being true to His word. His judgments are a demonstration of His faithfulness, just as much as His blessings are.
And last, we must see the grace in the ruin. Why does God tear things down? So that He can rebuild. The temple of stone was destroyed, but God promised a new covenant, where He would write His law on our hearts. He would build a new temple, not of stone, but of living stones, the church, with Christ Himself as the cornerstone. Jesus Christ is our true King and our great High Priest, the one who was not spurned, but who was crushed by the indignation of God's anger for our sakes. He endured the ultimate divine deconstruction on the cross, so that we, the true temple, might be built up in Him.
Therefore, when we see corruption in the church, when we see leaders who fail, when we see worship that is hollow, we should not despair. We should pray that God, in His mercy, would take up His hammer again. We should pray for a holy deconstruction, that He might tear down the flimsy garden booths of our own making, so that He might build His glorious house, a house of prayer for all nations, on the unshakable foundation of His Son. For our God is both a judge who tears down and a Father who builds up, and all His ways are righteous and true.