“Look, YHWH, and See!” is a sermon I preached at Lansdale Presbyterian Church last Sunday. The text is Lamentations 1-2, and the book of Lamentations more generally. This sermon was originally prepared for a Sunday morning at Preakness Valley URC back in August, but Hurricane Irene prevented me from traveling to NJ–the service ended up being canceled.

So, when given my first opportunity to preach at my home church, I finally mustered my courage and preached on Lamentations. Faithful readers of this blog (luv ya, Mom) will recognize elements of my previous work in Lamentations. I hope I was able to bring a personal perspective on the object of my academic study–head meeting heart, as it were.

Here is the MP3 audio (33:07, 30.3MB), and an excerpt:

Let me suggest to you that Lamentations points us forward to an answer to the questions of evil and God’s justice. That answer is this: I don’t know the ultimate answer to the problem of evil; but I trust the God who does. I trust the God who became a man, looked evil straight in the eye and said, “Do your worst,” taking all the pain, suffering, death and misery upon himself. Murders, tortures, rapes, the anguish of losing a close friend, the pain of rejection and separation—Jesus experienced all of these. Even if I can’t fathom how a truly loving God can permit evil to exist, I can trust that he has experienced it all.

Audio and text: ©2012 by Benjamin D. Giffone. Reproduction and distribution are permitted, providing that the author is properly credited and that no fee is charged.