Peace Of Righteousness

Second Sunday of Advent 2024

The prophet Baruch was assistant to the prophet Jeremiah. His mentor is associated mostly with the final days of the Kingdom of Judah, and his prophecies were generally so dire that we now call such language a “jeremiad.” Wow. Imagine several hundred years from now your own name being associated with bad news and laments and catastrophe. Baruch left some writings we find only in the Greek OT, and we read these today as a kind of preface to the story of John the Baptist related in the Gospel of Luke. They are words of encouragement that seem directed to the Jews who had been dragged off to Babylon after Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed in the sixth century before Jesus. They treat Jerusalem as a person with a slightly altered name. “Jerusalem” means “a foundation laid in peace.” But so many times it was abused by war. The new name translates as “Peace of righteousness and glory of godliness.” And her people will be returned to the new Jerusalem in a glorious state. That kind of reminds us of the last chapters of the book of Revelation, when the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, would have us as her people, and there would be no more lament and evil in us, by the grace of Christ.

So when we look at all the prophetic books, Baruch is simply summing up all of their promises—from Isaiah through Hosea and Jeremiah and Ezekiel. When the people turn to God in praise and right living, in true justice, they will know the fullness of peace, and God will be in their midst to console and empower them.

The psalmist today is putting words and music to the procession of God’s people back to the Holy City. Their triumph is such that all the nations around Jerusalem, even those who conspired to destroy Israel, celebrated their return. "The LORD has done great things for them." And we respond that the Lord has done great things for us, filling us with gladness. It will be like going out to sow crops but watching them grow tall even before we return home, and then reaping them and bringing them back. That is a kind of prophecy of the results of evangelization, of spreading the Good News to a world in desperate need of Christ and His Church.

How does this happen? St. Paul tells one of his favorite churches up in northern Greece, the Philippians, whom he calls “partners” in the Gospel, what will draw men and women to share their faith: “ it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruits of righteousness which come through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.” So, in a word, imitate Jesus Christ, His Mother, Mary, and all the apostles, doing good and giving right praise to God.

St. Luke reminds us that this movement, called originally “the Way” started with a prophet in the wilderness of Judea, at a particular time in history, when certain political figures governed the Holy Land. He didn’t wait for the politics to be just right. In fact, most of the leaders and rulers in the list were total jerks, beginning with Tiberius. But he spoke God’s word boldly and continuously and did prepare the way of the Lord Jesus. The lowly were raised up and the haughty and arrogant were brought low, and all flesh saw, in the God-man, Jesus, salvation from God. That’s the message we must share with everyone we know.