Longing to be Right

A Reflection on the First Reading for December 2nd, 2018:
First Sunday of Advent

Jeremiah 33.14-16

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah.

In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.

In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the name by which it will be called: “The Lord is our righteousness.”

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It’s all about righteousness.

… a righteous Branch
… righteousness in the land
… Jerusalem renamed ‘the Lord is our righteousness.’

The people of Israel were suffering, mostly by their own hand, but they were longing for a way out of the corner they’d backed themselves into — a way out into a spacious place. Reaching toward Him coming, the Messiah. There is a longing for things to be right.

Advent is a time of longing. Even the Latin word itself speaks this. It’s a mishmash of two words: ad (towards) + venit (comes).

I took Latin in high school for no particular reason other than it seemed peculiar. That, and maybe because I was intrigued by the teacher, Mrs. Schram, who was so tiny. Her husband taught me English and he was simply huge. Fun thing with a latin verb — you don’t need to put a pronoun in front of it to know who’s up to something. The doer of the action is buried in the letter at the end of the verb. If it had been venio, it would be I am coming. If it had been venis, it would be you are coming. But it is venit, so it’s he, or it, is coming. This has been my repeated internal battle of December. Am I living in the tension of 'it' is coming, Christmas with all the bells and whistles and demands? Or am I living in the tension of 'He' is coming? Jesus. The long-awaited One. The One coming to make things right.

"Am I living in the tension of 'it' is coming, Christmas with all the bells and whistles and demands? Or am I living in the tension of 'He' is coming?
​Jesus. The long-awaited One. The One coming to make things right."

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God promised, irrevocably, “I shall cause a righteous Branch to spring up… and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.” But the completely unimaginable way He made things right! He does not execute justice by bringing down a gavel, or righteousness by brandishing a sceptre. If He had, not only would Israel’s enemies not survive, but Israel herself would not survive. I would not survive. He executes righteousness, not with a gavel or a sceptre, but with a living breathing Branch, a baby. He gives us His son, to take on what we earned by backing ourselves into a corner. To become our righteousness, because He knew it was the only way through to the spacious place near Him. Jerusalem’s new name says it all, “The Lord is our righteousness”.

"He gives us His son, to take on what we earned by backing ourselves into a corner.
To become our righteousness, because He knew it was the only way through to the
​spacious place near Him."

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When Israel expressed a longing for righteousness, it spread out past the boundaries of someone’s moral standing and flooded into the rightness of everything, of existence. God was going to make all things right, no longer bent or twisted. And that's what’s behind the words spoken to a young Israeli girl, our Mother, by a being of light, “… you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus…” (Luke 1:31). Saviour.

Let us Pray: 

My God, I hold on to this. In this season of longing for rightness, You are our righteousness. All that is bent or twisted around me, or in me, I entrust to You — our beautiful Branch.

Noreen Smith

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