19 Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall! 20 My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. 21 But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: 22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; 23 they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. 24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” 25 The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. 26 It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.
Lamentations 3:19-26
One of Christianity’s most famous and beloved hymns is “Great Is Thy Faithfulness.” It is a hymn that many of us can sing part of from memory. At the very least, we can sing the famous refrain from the top of our head. What is not as famous is the passage that the hymn is inspired by: Lamentations 3.
The prophet Jeremiah pens this book after the destruction of Jerusalem and Judah. The Babylonians destroyed everything, and that isn’t an understatement. The land was devastated. The temple was leveled. The monarchy in captivity. The people deported. Scholars have said that after this event, 90% of Jerusalem’s population was either killed or deported. The same can be said for most of Judah, too.
Yet, in the midst of such loss, pain, and destruction, Jeremiah has hope. And what is his hope? “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” Even though Jeremiah is living in a nightmare, it does not mean that God’s love will end. It does not mean that His mercy will cease. It does not mean that God will stop being faithful. In fact, it is the opposite. God is still loving, merciful, and faithful in the face of it! Through Christ’s death and resurrection, this is our hope as well. God will still be loving, faithful, and merciful. We can count on it!
As we celebrate our congregation’s 75th anniversary, we can say with the hymn writer and Jeremiah, “Great is Thy faithfulness!” God has been faithful to us, and our congregation. God has been with us and our congregation through the good and the bad. God will continue to be with us and our congregation in the future, too. We can count on it because of Jesus!
Great is Thy faithfulness! Pastor Nick Kooi
(Originally published in Emmaus Footprints, Vol. XXV, Number 4, November 2023.)