Call to Worship based on Baruch 5:1-9
There is already joy
in looking forward to joy …
There is already mercy
in looking forward to mercy …
and righteousness
in hungering for righteousness …
Joy and mercy and righteousness
are calling us …
out of ourselves …
out of sorrow …
out of coldness …
out of wrong …
calling us toward what can be …
calling us toward God …
Let us worship God!
5:1 Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem, and put on forever the beauty of the glory from God.
5:2 Put on the robe of the righteousness that comes from God; put on your head the diadem of the glory of the Everlasting;
5:3 for God will show your splendor everywhere under heaven.
5:4 For God will give you evermore the name, “Righteous Peace, Godly Glory.”
5:5 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.
5:6 For they went out from you on foot, led away by their enemies; but God will bring them back to you, carried in glory, as on a royal throne.
5:7 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.
5:8 The woods and every fragrant tree have shaded Israel at God’s command.
5:9 For God will lead Israel with joy, in the light of his glory, with the mercy and righteousness that come from him.
Baruch 5:1-9
Image: “Advent 01-12-2012” by Liesel, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Matters of Interpretation 