December 6, 2009
The Ven. Richard I. Cluett
Charles Dickens began his book, The Tale of Two Cities, with these words:
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period…
Don’t those words have a ring of familiarity? He must have been reading this morning’s, NY Times. It does sound like a time not too dissimilar from our own time, our now. The lesson from Baruch is addressed to a people who also were living in such a time.
He was writing to people whose parents and grandparents had returned from exile in Babylon. They had come home to build futures for themselves and their people ... to find jobs, to build homes, to build new lives, new farms, new villages, a new Temple, a New Jerusalem.
But it had all turned sour. Some said, “The prophecies of Isaiah had been lies.” They were continually at war. The land was not giving forth her increase. Life was full of pain, unmet expectations, unfulfilled dreams, and hopes not realized. Life was full, but not of the fulfillment they had dreamed, hoped, worked, and prayed for. People were just trying to "hang in, hang on."
They were leaving the Promised Land in droves for the promise of work and security elsewhere. The chosen people were continuing to be dispersed, but now of their own accord, by their own will. The faith, the culture, the people themselves were blending into foreign faiths, foreign cultures, and foreign peoples. All was not right with the world, and the Lord seemed far distant from his people.
Into this setting came the words of Baruch. “Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem ... look toward the east and see your children gathered from the west and east at the word of the Holy One, rejoicing that God has remembered them … For God will lead Israel with joy, in the light of his glory, with the mercy and righteousness that come from him.”
Baruch presented to the Israelites, at home and abroad, the reason for their distress, the source of their redemption, and the certainty of their salvation. The return from exile had been but a foreshadow of the kingdom to come, “although eye cannot see, nor ear hear…”
God remembers and gathers Israel. God's faithfulness guides their return. God's compassion and justice accompany the people into God’s future and their future.
A few hundred years later, people again lived in such a time. A foreign power ruled in their land through vassal kings, princes, and governors. The poor had never been poorer. It seemed as if people were waiting in line to separate the people from their possessions, their land, their security.
And Luke tells us that again God sent a messenger to his people. He came out of the desert, having lived through nights than which there are no colder...land more barren than any... no security other than God. Out of the desert came John, prophet of God, to claim the future for God ... to reclaim God’s people by repentance and forgiveness ... to proclaim that “all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”
Out of the desert experience, salvation will come. In the cold and dark of human experience, God will fashion a new humanity. Through the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus, what has been promised BECOMES. The kingdom is begun, a New Jerusalem is being built … and the promise is that all flesh will see it."
My experience tells me that it is in the "winter of our discontent" that our dissatisfaction with our lives opens us up to the possibility of new life. My experience tells me that it is in the "dark night of the soul" that the glimmer of faith within us is rediscovered. My experience tells me that it is when we have gone astray and are lost that we are willing to be found.
It is in Advent that we hear the Good News of the Light that is coming into the world, whom we are blessed, to know is Jesus.
As Advent points to the Good News, so we witness to this world that Jesus is Lord – of this life and the life to come, the future. It is he who restores all things, even the ones in the cold and dark of human experience. It is he who is that salvation of God proclaimed by John and pointed to by Baruch. It is he whom Advent announces, and announces not just to the covenant people, but announces to all people ... even to us ... once again.
Therefore we and all people who turn to God can live in hope and in expectation that the way through the hard things in life will be found, and that in the living and in the searching for that way, we are known, we are loved, we are empowered – and in time,
“All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well” in the words of Dame Julian of Norwich.
Even in the hard times of life, “God’s glory will be revealed and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”
And so we come back to the words of the Prophet Baruch,
Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem…
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…
For God will lead Israel with joy,
in the light of his glory,
with the mercy and righteousness that come from him.
We are the New Jerusalem, we are the new Israel, so listen to Baruch and to John and turn to our God in all seasons of your life, in “the best of times and the worst of times” and in all those everyday times in between, turn to God, made known to us in Jesus the Messiah, and live – live expectantly, live in hope, and receive the salvation and the mercy and the righteousness that come from God.
