Baruch 5:1-9
Canticle 16
Philippians 1:3-11
Luke 3:1-6
The earliest
mention we have of the city of Jerusalem is in Egyptian texts of the 18th
and 19th centuries BC.
Various theories have been proposed for the origins of the city’s name,
and the most likely is that it is a combination of two elements, yeru (Sumerian for “foundation”) and
Shalim, the Phoenician Canaanite god of dusk. With his twin brother Shahar, the god of
dawn, they share a connection with the sun goddess. Nevertheless, the theory which has had the
most influence is that “Jerusalem” actually means, ironically enough considering
its history, “city of peace”. The word
itself being a blending of the Hebrew yireh,
meaning “an abiding place of the fear and service of God” and salem (or in modern Hebrew, shalom), – “peace”. It is not just a “city of peace’, but God’s
city of peace.
Built on two hills and on the boundary between
present-day Israel’s cultivated grasslands and arid desert regions, the city
itself seems a representative of opposites and dichotomy. The writer Amos Elon notes that for Jerusalem
“there has always been a tension between the present and the future, the
earthly and the heavenly, the real and the ideal Jerusalem, a city of diverse
people struggling to accomplish their daily activities and the city of
religious visionaries.” Jerusalem seems
always caught between one thing and another, between its history and its
future, between vision and reality, dawn and dusk, war and peace, between prosperity
and desolation; and the latter is the context of the Book of prophet Baruch.
While the book is set during the time of the Babylonian captivity which occurred in the 6th century BC, it was actually written sometime between 200 BC and 50 BC when Jerusalem and the whole area was ruled by the despotic heirs of Alexander the Great. Certainly, both these periods were periods of crisis, when the Jewish people were in the midst of subjugation while at the same time forging a new self-understanding. The author of Baruch writes in order to give hope to those living within the context of this crisis and soul-searching. He writes while caught in the tension between the vision of peace and the reality of its absence. The author writes to a people living in exile, whether physical or spiritual, and offers hope through a vision of peace centered on the “city of peace”: “For God will give you evermore the name, Righteous Peace, Godly Glory. Arise, O Jerusalem, stand upon the height; look toward the east, and see your children gathered from west and east at the word of the Holy One, rejoicing that God has remembered them.” (Baruch 5:4-5) The prophet envisions a return from the exile, a return of peace to the people and to the land; a time when the tensions of opposites will cease to exist: “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.” (Baruch 5:7)
It is hardly surprising that this imagery is placed in
reference to John the Baptist in the Gospel of Luke, quoting – in this case –
the prophet Isaiah. The times of John
and Jesus, the times of the Gospels’ writing were times also of conflicting
opposites. Certainly conflicting images
of peace. The known world was ruled by
the Romans, and the writer of Luke goes to great pains to make that clear: “In
the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was
governor of Judea” and so on. (cf.
Luke 1:1-3) It was the time of the Pax Romana, the Roman Peace, which had
been inaugurated by Tiberius’ predecessor, the Emperor Augustus Caesar through
the violent subjugation of his enemies, and the ruthless military control of
the various parts of the Empire, including Judaea. The peace of the Romans was bought at a
terrible price; one need only have witnessed the many who, considered to be
threats to that peace, were killed or executed, and the many more that lived in
dark fear and the shadow of that peace’s violence. The Roman peace was just that – peace for the
Romans. Caught in this one-sided
“peace”, the ministry of John is signaled by pointing to an older image rooted
in the prophetic tradition of Israel, the image of shalom. If the Pax Romana is
peace at any price and one maintained through a rule of terror, the Hebrew shalom is one about right
relationships. It is about living and
relating in ways which establish and maintain justice and human dignity. It is a vision of peace expressed in the
poetic language of Isaiah: “The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard
shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
and a little child shall lead them. The
cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion
shall eat straw like the ox….They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy
mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters
cover the sea.” (Isaiah 11:6-7, 9)
Living in a time terror and looking for a future beyond it, John the
Baptist and Jesus, and all those who would follow him, looked to the past in
order to find something meaningful to say about peace, in order to give the lie
to the image of peace being peddled by the powers that be. Like the prophets, they looked beyond not
simply to a cessation of violence, but a whole way of being and of running
things which exemplified God’s purposes for human beings and the rest of
creation.
Again, this vision of peace was not simply a precarious cessation of violence, but a reign of right living, respectful relationship; and this understanding of peace would color the entire Christian movement. It would shape the Church and relationships within her, because in reading the prophets they understood peace – that kind of peace – as foundational to the kingdom of God. And so we can see how often peace becomes a greeting for Christians, how often Paul opens his letters by offering his readers peace in the name of the Lord. The distinction between the peace of God – shalom – and worldly peace – the pax romana and anything like it – is made explicit in the Gospel of John when Jesus says to his friends. “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” (John 14:27) And while we as the Church may not have always lived out this reality of peace, we certainly keep it at the center of our lives, even if only as a reminder of what we are called to and what we are to be about. We keep it at the center of the liturgy too; after the confession, after we have come before God and admitted our brokenness. We come to each other and offer to one another peace. We renew our commitment to the vision of shalom, that peace that is grounded in justice and right relationship.
Like our ancestors in
faith, like the city of Jerusalem herself, we too often live in the midst of
conflicting opposites, and are challenged as to how to walk on level ground,
how to see past the hills and valleys to the truth of God, of our lives, of
ourselves, of each other. In the midst
of the conflict and chaos of exile, Baruch preached God’s vision of peace for
the city of peace. In the midst of a
false peace maintained by violence and oppression, John the Baptist and Jesus
preached a peace that is the not determined by expedience or conventional
standards, but by real justice, grounded in fellowship and human dignity. They lived in a world of competing opposites,
but pointed beyond them to a vision of shalom. We
ourselves often find ourselves living in dawn and dusk, trying always to discern
day. The prophetic image of peace, which
is Jesus’ vision of peace, takes us beyond all dualities and conflicts to
reveal God’s own un-ending day, God’s own vision for us and for the world; and
as Christians we are called to direct the world to it, accepting no substitute. Like the prophets, like John, like Jesus we
point to the coming – the Advent – of that peace in God’s renewal of all things
when “every valley shall be filled,…every mountain and hill…made low, the
crooked [paths] made straight, and the rough ways…smooth.” (Luke 3:5) May the world know that peace by our lives
and practice; indeed by our life and practice of peace – real peace – may “all
flesh…see the salvation of God.” (cf.
Luke 1:6)
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