Second Thursday of Advent: 2022

 I'm gonna lay down my sword and shield

Down by the riverside, down by the riverside,

  down by the riverside

I'm gonna lay down my sword and shield

Down by the riverside, down by the riverside!

I ain't gonna study war no more!

I ain't gonna study war no more!

I ain't gonna study war no more!

I ain't gonna study war no more!

I ain't gonna study war no more!

I ain't gonna study war no more!

—Spiritual 

Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem.

and put on for ever the beauty of the glory from God.

Put on the robe of the righteousness from God;

put on your head the diadem of the glory of the Everlasting.

For God will show your splendor everywhere under heaven.

For your name will for ever be called by God,

"Peace of righteousness and glory of godliness."

Arise, O Jerusalem, stand upon the height and look toward the east,

and see your children gathered from west to east, at the word of the Holy One,

rejoicing that God has remembered them.

For they went forth from you on foot, led away by their enemies;

But God will bring them back to you, carried in glory as on a 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 treee have shaded Israel at God's command.

For God will lead Israel with joy, in the light of the divine glory,

with mercy and righteousness that come from God.

--Baruch 5: 1-9

I'll admit I'm not familiar with the book of Baruch, having grown up a Protestant with Baruch relegated to the "Apocrypha," of which I only became aware in adulthood, and even then didn't study.  It's a pity I missed out for so long.  I'll take the time to correct that hole in my knowledge, soon.

But just reading this passage as I typed (which forces you to read word by word, a good skill for exegesis or even close reading), I notice again first the theme (Biblical theology!) of reversal. No surprise; this was clearly written deep in the Exile, as Israel tried to remember Jerusalem, a foreign city to some children of Abraham by then, and recalled their covenant with God which seemed to be broken and lost forever.

"Alone, alone, about a dreadful wood..."

Maybe not with the Christian overtones of original sin in Auden's poem, but certainly the Exile was a consequence of Israel's faithlessness, not because of the unreasoning wrath of an angry God.  The promise to Israel here is restoration, a reversal of their misfortune (just as the Exile was a reversal of fortunes), based on "mercy and righteousness that come from God."  This is a peaceful, not a martial, vision.  Trees will shade Israel at the Creator's command. The splendor of Israel restored will be the "Peace of righteousness and glory of godliness."  Not wealth, not power; something far more valuable and permanent.  And the lines just after that are, again, about reversal:

Arise, O Jerusalem, stand upon the height and look toward the east,

and see your children gathered from west to east, at the word of the Holy One,

rejoicing that God has remembered them.

For they went forth from you on foot, led away by their enemies;

But God will bring them back to you, carried in glory as on a throne.

All based on "Peace of righteousness and glory of godliness."  Or, as the angels sing in Luke:  "And on earth peace to people whom he has favored."  It suddenly occurs to me an comparison of Luke's songs to some of these lines might be in order.

Two themes predominate here:  the blessings that flow from righteousness (which makes that a very complex concept indeed), and reversal.

Advent is all about God's reversal, God's actions in human history.