Dress Up

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

December 9, 2018

2 Advent C

         

          My grandmother kept old dresses in a trunk in her guest room.  The garments probably dated from the 1940’s and 50’s.  I do not remember the exact items of clothing, but I do remember the musty smell.  My sister and I would use those clothes to play dress-up when we were little girls.  The clothes would serve as costumes when we wanted to put on a play, like “Cinderella.”  Or sometimes we would just parade around the house in the dresses, pretending to be the fashionable ladies of the 1940’s rather than the awkward 7 and 8 year olds of the 1960’s.  Wearing those old clothes was temporarily transformative, however.  When, for a little while we saw ourselves as glamorous women, later when we were back in our shorts and t-shirts, we carried ourselves a little taller and with a bit more self-confidence than we had before.  When we thought of ourselves differently, even for a few short hours, we behaved differently for what I am sure was a time far more brief than our grandmother would have liked!

 Our reading from Baruch reminds me of those hours playing dress-up with my grandmother’s old clothes.  Baruch was the prophet Jeremiah's scribe and the book of Baruch is set in the 6th century BCE at the time of the Babylonian exile.  God's chosen people had been forcibly removed from the Promised Land.  The land had been burned and the temple had been destroyed.  The people wondered how they could possibly live as God’s people apart from the land God had given them.  Into this situation, Baruch writes the words we hear this morning. "Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem, and put on forever the beauty of the glory of God...For God will evermore give you the name ‘Righteous peace, Godly glory."  Baruch is calling the people to stop letting negative thoughts and self-pity control them.  Instead, Baruch calls the people to dress up in the beauty of the glory of God and the diadem of the glory of the Everlasting, living into their identity as people of God.  Then Baruch echoes the words of Isaiah that we hear from John the Baptist in the gospel reading: "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 is speaking words of hope to this exiled people, encouraging them to live like people who have been given the name "Righteous peace, Godly glory."  In the midst of their heartbreak, Baruch calls them to live like people who believe God will lead them with joy, in the light of his glory, with the mercy and righteousness that come from God.  Baruch does not say this, but I imagine the scribe is thinking that if the people can live as people of deep hope, even in the midst of deep adversity, they will be transformed by that hope.  Then they can trust in the safety of the glory of God. 

On the other hand, John the Baptist proclaims a baptism of repentance this morning.  He won't get around to calling us a brood of vipers until next Sunday.  This Sunday is a milder call to repent in order to prepare the way of the Lord.  We hear words similar to those of Baruch "Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain shall be made low...and all flesh shall see the salvation of God."

 Repentance.  When I think of repentance I usually think of things I need to stop doing.  But the word "repent" means to turn around, to change course, not just to stop doing something.  So, I wonder if the repentance John calls for looks like the change of behavior Baruch calls for.  What if repentance, preparing the way of the Lord, is really about taking off the garment of sorrow and affliction, giving up whatever negative thoughts and self pity control us, and putting on the beauty of the glory from God?  What if repentance means making a choice to live believing that God is leading us with joy, in the light of his glory, with the mercy and righteousness that comes from God?  And if we were to really live into the name "Righteous peace, Godly glory" might the valley of despair around us begin to be filled or the mountain of fear begin to be made straight?

 Neither Baruch nor John the Baptist are calling us to pretend that we are something we are not, or to act like real problems do not exist.  In the  midst of whatever situation we find ourselves, both are calling us to live like the people God made us to be, whether we feel like that on any given day or not, and to allow ourselves to be transformed from the outside in by our new behavior.  Baruch reminds us that we can't always control how we feel, but we can control how we act.  John the Baptist tells us to prepare the way of the Lord, to make his paths straight, not so that our own lives will be easier or better, and not so that we will be more pleasant to live with, although that might certainly be the case.  John the Baptist calls us to prepare the way of the Lord so that all flesh shall see the salvation of God.   As Christians we believe that the salvation of God became visible in the person of Jesus, and during Advent we wait for the Christ Child to arrive.  But as followers of Jesus, Advent also calls us to dress up a bit and put on forever the beauty of the glory of God.  Wear the diadem of the glory of the everlasting.  Live as people who are led with joy in the light of God’s glory.  Then our lives will reflect the salvation of God for all to see both here and now, and in the Christmas cradle. 

                                                  Amen.