Scripture Daily

Context No. 1017 of 4322 · Baruch

Context · Reflection

Baruch 5:1-9: in context

1Take off the garment of your mourning and affliction, O Jerusalem, and put on forever the beauty of the glory from God. 2Put on the robe of the righteousness from God. Set on your head a diadem of the glory of the Everlasting. 3For God will show your splendor everywhere under heaven. 4For your name will be called by God forever “Righteous Peace, Godly Glory”. 5Arise, O Jerusalem, and stand upon the height. Look around you toward the east and see your children gathered from the going down of the sun to its rising at the word of the Holy One, rejoicing that God has remembered them. 6For they went from you on foot, being led away by their enemies, but God brings them in to you carried on high with glory, on a royal throne. 7For God has appointed that every high mountain and the everlasting hills should be made low, and the valleys filled up to make the ground level, that Israel may go safely in the glory of God. 8Moreover the woods and every sweet smelling tree have shaded Israel by the commandment of God. 9For God will lead Israel with joy in the light of his glory with the mercy and righteousness that come from him.

After chapters of confession and grief, Baruch turns to pure comfort. Take off your garment of mourning, O Jerusalem, and put on forever the beauty of God's glory; wrap the robe of God's righteousness around you, set the crown of the Everlasting on your head. God will show your splendor to all the earth, and give you a new name, Righteous Peace, Godly Glory. Stand on the height and look east, and see your scattered children gathered back from where the sun sets to where it rises, coming home rejoicing. They went out on foot, led away by enemies, but God brings them back carried in glory; he levels the mountains and fills the valleys so Israel can walk safely home.

The passage is a change of clothes. Jerusalem has been sitting in the garment of mourning and affliction, the widow's black of the earlier chapters, and God tells her to take it off and put on beauty and glory instead. Grief is real and has its season, but it is not to be worn forever; there comes a word from God that says the mourning is over, put on the robe of righteousness now. And the reason is the return of the children. She went out watching her sons and daughters marched away into exile on foot, in chains, and now she is told to look up and watch them come home, gathered from every direction, carried back in honor. God himself flattens the mountains and raises the valleys to make the road home smooth, the same image John the Baptist will use for the coming of the Lord. It is a vision of exile reversed, mourning exchanged for glory, the scattered gathered, because God has remembered his people. Sorrow is given an end.

Am I still wearing a garment of mourning God may be telling me to take off, and can I trust the God who levels mountains to bring home what has been scattered and lost?

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