Baruch 2:19-26: a reflection

19For we do not present our supplication before you, O Lord our God, for the righteousness of our fathers and of our kings. 20For you have sent your wrath and your indignation upon us, as you have spoken by your servants the prophets, saying, 21“The Lord says, ‘Bow your shoulders to serve the king of Babylon, and remain in the land that I gave to your fathers. 22But if you won’t hear the voice of the Lord to serve the king of Babylon, 23I will cause to cease out of the cities of Judah and from the region near Jerusalem the voice of mirth, the voice of gladness, voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride. The whole land will be desolate without inhabitant.’” 24But we wouldn’t listen to your voice, to serve the king of Babylon. Therefore you have made good your words that you spoke by your servants the prophets, that the bones of our kings and the bones of our fathers would be taken out of their places. 25Behold, they are cast out to the heat by day and to the frost by night. They died in great miseries by famine, by sword, and by pestilence. 26You have made the house that is called by your name as it is today because of the wickedness of the house of Israel and the house of Judah.

In a prayer of confession during the exile, the people of Israel come before God, and they are careful to name the ground on which they come. We do not present our supplications before you, O Lord our God, for the righteousness of our fathers and our kings, they say, but because of your great mercies. They do not appeal to their own goodness or their ancestors' righteousness, of which they have none to boast; they come pleading God's mercy alone. Acknowledging that their sin had brought the judgment they suffered, they cast themselves not on their merit but on his mercy.

Notice the ground of their approach to God: his mercy, not their righteousness. They had no righteousness to plead; their sins had brought them low. So they came appealing not to any goodness of their own but to God's great mercies. This is the only ground on which sinners can rightly come to God: not our merit, which is always insufficient, but his mercy, which is great.

That is a model for how we come to God. We are tempted, in prayer and in our whole approach to God, to lean subtly on our own goodness, our righteousness, our religious record, as though these gave us standing before him. But like the exiles, we have no righteousness sufficient to plead; our only ground is God's mercy. Come to God, then, as they did: not appealing to your own goodness, but pleading his great mercy. Cast yourself not on your merit but on his mercy, which is great enough to receive even sinners like us. We come to God rightly only when we come pleading mercy, not merit.

Lord, the exiles came before you in prayer pleading not the righteousness of their fathers or their own goodness, of which they had none to boast, but your great mercies. Teach me to come to you the same way. I am tempted to lean subtly on my own goodness, my righteousness, my religious record, as though these gave me standing before you. But I have no righteousness sufficient to plead; my only ground is your mercy. Help me come to you not appealing to my merit, but casting myself on your great mercy, which is great enough to receive even a sinner like me. I do not present my goodness before you; I plead your mercy. Receive me not for my merit, but for your mercy's sake.