Learn Wisdom with Baruch by Fr Chris Clohessy

The Wisdom of Baruch

Fr Chris Clohessy

Hidden in the Old Testament between all those towering figures like Hosea and Isaiah, Elijah and Micah, stands a hardly known prophet called Baruch. He was the welleducated, quite highly placed deputy of Jeremiah. He had a prominent position, and even delivered bits of Jeremiah’s message when the latter was indisposed. All Baruch really had to do was to take dictation, writing down the things that Jeremiah was hearing from God. What Jeremiah didn’t know was that his secretary was moonlighting – when he wasn’t writing down what God was saying to Jeremiah, he was hearing things from God, too. Other prophets may have thundered judgment, or challenged people from unpopular stances, or tried to breathe new life into the weary, but Baruch is the prophet of the second chance, of the fresh start and the new beginning.

Put off, O Jerusalem, writes Baruch, the garment of mourning and affliction, and put on the wholesomeness of the glory that comes from God for ever. Cast around you a double garment of the righteousness which comes from God, and set a diadem on your head of the glory of the Everlasting. Actually, the book we have in our bibles is First Baruch, because there are four books attributed to him. Really, it’s just a folder with two bits of paper stuck in it, and sometimes, though not always, a third bit of paper called the Letter of Jeremiah. Baruch is writing about the Exile; all the citizens of Jerusalem have been carried off into exile by an invading army into what is today Iraq. It is a disaster for the city and the people, but Baruch doesn’t say: This terrible thing should never have happened! Instead, he tells them: Clearly it was always going to happen because people have sinned and disobeyed the Law of God. The exile is a just punishment for turning away from Him.

Baruch begins with a prayer that admits that the people have sinned and are in need of forgiveness. Then he writes a poem all about how important it is to live our lives with wisdom. Speaking from an empty Jerusalem to the people in Exile, Baruch shouts across to them: Why are you there, in that enemy country, growing older and older in foreign territory? If you hadn’t given up wisdom, if you had walked in the way of God, you’d be living in peace right now! But I have news for you. God is giving you a fresh beginning! Repent of your sins, and stop doing them. Take off the clothing of sadness, and put on the garments given by God. Change your way of living. And God will level a road through whatever desert you are facing, so you can return safely, surrounded by the light of his glory, his integrity, his mercy.

Baruch understands that repentance without a change of lifestyle isn’t repentance – it’s just regret. But he also understands what happens when we don’t live

Baruch writes at Jeremiah’s dictation (Jeremiah 36: 4-6)

wisely, and invites us to ask: Where does wisdom fit into my personal hierarchy of virtues? Real wisdom, insists Baruch, is not information or cleverness but is found in the word of God. The scriptures tell us that wisdom, the sort that enfolds itself into our lives and translates our days into something meaningful, begins in us when we start to live reverently before God. Our hearts grow wise when we begin to number our days correctly, learning to make each day count by remembering that there is a final destination to this journey we are on. That destination is the door of the Father’s house and eventually we will be standing in front of it. When people realize this, their hearts grow wise, because they start to live each day to the full, with courage and energy, making this limited life joy-filled and productive.

Each of us needs to find wisdom to live by. Not information; we live under an avalanche of information, none of which seems to shape our lives into something better. There is a huge difference between information and wisdom. The best-informed person is not always the wisest. There are some very intelligent people in the world who do some very unwise things. No, it is wisdom that makes something of our lives. Get wisdom, the bible says. Let it be a sister to you. In the Old Testament, Wisdom is portrayed as a woman crying out to the people to make wise choices. She does not promise that wisdom is going to make life perfect, but paving the road with wise choices help to make it much smoother when hard times come. Wisdom is the thing that sets a guard over our mouths, keeps watch at the door of our lips, filtering our words. Wisdom is the thing that scrutinizes our choices, to tell us which one is prudent. Whatever is at the centre of our life will be the source of our security, our guidance and our power. God thinks it should be wisdom.