The OT lesson Sunday Lamentations 3:22-33, is from a book written after the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BC.  The lament begins 1:3 -4, “How lonely sits the city that was full of people!  How like a widow has she become…She weeps bitterly in the night…she has none to comfort her…Judah has gone into exile…the roads to Zion mourn…all her gates are desolate.”

It might surprise us to read in 3:22, “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning.”  Even when crushed under the foot of the captors, “let him put his mouth in the dust-there may yet be hope…for the Lord will not cast off forever.”

This text is paired with the gospel lesson, Mark 5:21-43.  Jairus, a president of a synagogue, sees Jesus’ and falls at his feet in the dust, begging that Jesus would come and touch his gravely ill daughter and make her well that she might live.  Along the way a woman who had been bleeding for a dozen years, an untouchable, touched his clothes and felt in her body the blood dry up.  Jesus also felt power go out of him.  “Who touched me?”  The woman came with fear and trembling and fell in the dust. Jesus said, “Go in peace.”

The Lord is merciful, his steadfast love never ceases, even though we may have fallen or been shoved face down into the dust.