The book of Baruch is one of seven books the continental reformers removed from their bible. That is a shame because they are all wonderful literature. For example, there is the book of Baruch who was historically-speaking the secretary of the prophet Jeremiah. He treats of the Babylonian Exile and, in today's pericope, the author and prophet speaks to those about to return to their Holy Land. Scholars tell us that the Jewish exiles had done well in what is now Iraq and most were assimilated. Only perhaps twenty percent made return to Palestine but they apparently did so with great passion and vigour to restore their heritage in their homeland. He makes two particularly important points.
First, he tells the returning exiles to change their clothes -- a metaphor for repenting, returning to God, and discerning the divine will in their personal lives and the lives of the greater community. Repentance in the biblical Hebrew is "teshuvah," meaning to turn around and go in a new direction. Certainly there is a message for us that God is always ready to lead his people into a brighter future, but it requires work on our part. We must trade the "clothes" of sorrow, distress, and disillusionment for new clothes of integrity, vision, and hope. In other words, we must trust in God, which is the primary definition of faith.
Second, Baruch reminds us that when exiles are ready to return -- the Hebrews from bondage to a foreign power, us from bondage to sin and death -- God will make a straight path, one that has been levelled by chopping off mountains and filling in valleys. We may think of this as a way that God reveals to us that all of his children are equal in his sight and equally loved, equally challenged to follow a straight path to the Kingdom. There is to be no one percent and ninety-nine percent, no upper crust and lower crust, no good-enough and not-good-enough, in the Kingdom. God calls us to level the playing field in our society and world. A favourite Advent character, John the Baptiser, reminds us of that because he came bypassing the players of his time (whom he called a bunch of snakes) and going to the marginalized, the forgotten, the nobodies. Just like his cousin Jesus.
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