“Up, Jerusalem! Stand upon the heights;
look to the east and see your children gathered
from the east and the west at the word of the Holy One,
rejoicing that they are remembered by God.
Led away on foot by their enemies they left you,
but God will bring them back to you…
For God has commanded that every lofty mountain be made low,
and that the age-old depths and gorges be filled to level ground.” (Baruch 5)
Another Advent reading with the outrageous promise that the impossible is possible!
Another clue about God’s dream, God’s deepest desire for all creation.
Another call to believe and trust that God does not promise in vain
but keeps faith with the promise.
And the proof that God loves us beyond all measure?
Our God comes into our fractured world as one like us, in the flesh, human, vulnerable, limited;
our God remains with us as Savior.
“I pray always with joy in my every prayer for all of you,
because of your partnership for the gospel for the first day until now.
I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work in you
will continue to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus…
And this is my prayer: that your love may increase ever more and more in knowledge
and every kind of perception, to discern what is of value…” (letter of St. Paul to the Philippians, ch. 1)