Bring Us Back

A Reflection on the First Reading for December 9th, 2018:
Second Sunday of Advent

Baruch 5.1-9 

​Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem,
and put on forever the beauty of the glory from God.
Put on the robe of the righteousness that comes from God;
put on your head the diadem of the glory of the Everlasting;
for God will show your splendour everywhere under heaven.
For God will give you evermore the name,
“Righteous Peace, Godly Glory.”

Arise, O Jerusalem, stand upon the height;
look toward the east,
and see your children gathered from west and east
at the word of the Holy One,
rejoicing that God has remembered them.
For they went out from you on foot,
led away by their enemies;
but God will bring them back to you,
carried in glory, as on a royal throne.

For God has ordered that every high mountain
and the everlasting hills be made low
and the valleys filled up, to make level ground,
so that Israel may walk safely in the glory of God.
The woods and every fragrant tree
have shaded Israel at God’s command.
For God will lead Israel with joy,
in the light of his glory,
with the mercy and righteousness that come from him.

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Jerusalem is personified as ‘mother’ and so is our church. And like any mother, she makes mistakes and can go astray, but we still love our mother.

“Arise, O Jerusalem, stand upon the height;
look toward the east,
and see your children gathered from west and east
at the word of the Holy One,
rejoicing that God has remembered them.”
 
We have been led away by our enemies, one of which in modern times is technology. It continues to creep into every aspect of our lives to the point that human relations are suffering greatly. We are becoming so isolated and disconnected from one another that we have forgotten why we exist and to whom we belong. We need to come back to our mother church and let God carry us high in glory as on royal thrones.

“For God has ordered that every high mountain” — our hurts, regrets, sorrows, losses and ambitions — “... be made low... so that Israel may walk safely in the glory of God.”
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There is no suffering that God doesn’t take on Himself so that like “The woods and every fragrant tree”, we too are overshadowed at God’s command.
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For God is leading us in joy by the light of His glory, with the mercy and justice that are His.

​Patricia Cosgrove

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