HOW.....CAN THIS BE?

                When we think of the word....lamentations.....we think of mourning and sorrow....but the original Hebrew word used for the title of the Old Testament book written by Jeremiah....simply meant....'How"....implying....how could this be....how could this have come about?
               Jeremiah had warned the people for forty years on what was to come if they did not change their ways....but the false prophets kept coming....promising peace and prosperity and security. Even after Jerusalem was under the bondage of Nebuchadnezzar one prophet said that in two years that bondage would be broken. Jeremiah told that false prophet that....no.....that is not what is going to happen....but instead of the wooden yoke that they had then....it would become an iron yoke....and that he....the false prophet would die within the year.....all of which happened.
                Even though the weeping prophet had told them of the judgment to come....the severity and horror of the punishment when it did come....drove Jeremiah almost to despair. There was no law anymore....the once beautiful city was now an ash heap....enemies walked the streets....people had to pay for water and wood if they could find it....the nobles and the rich had nothing....and were no longer even recognized....and mothers even resorted to eating their children or die of starvation.
                So yes it is a book of mourning and sorrow and tears from Jeremiah....but the essence of the title says more....'how could this have happened to such a great and beautiful city?' Are we in America not asking ourselves that today....in only the beginnings of our judgment....'how could we have come to this?'
                Jeremiah wrote....seven verses from the end of this short five-chapter book...."Woe to us, for we have sinned!' There is an odd phrase only two verses later...."Because of Mount Zion, which is desolate, with foxes walking about on it." In the next few verses Jeremiah proclaimed...."You, O LORD, remain forever...."Turn us back to you, O LORD, and we will be restored."
                The rabbis over the centuries envisioned that when foxes would return to Mount Zion that it would be a precursor to the rebuilding of another temple. In 2019....on today's date....a few days before the 9th of Av....foxes were photographed on Mount Zion....and those photos made the news around the world.
                Jeremiah indeed still had faith and hope in God....that His people would return to Him....and that indeed will happen....for in the book under Jeremiah's name....the Book of Jeremiah.....he had already prophesied...."In those days and in that time....declares the LORD, iniquity shall be sought in Israel, and there shall be none, and sin in Judah, and none shall be found. for I will pardon those whom I leave as a remnant."  (Jeremiah 50:20 ESV)
                There is a remnant in Israel right now that will....in a time of extreme duress....come to salvation in He whom they once despised....to be one with us....the remnant among the gentiles....whose sins also will be covered by the blood of Jesus.