We live in an in-between time; in-between the First Coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and His Second Coming as the Lord of all the Nations. We are about to remember the moment God Almighty entered the human race and experienced first-hand the joys and sorrows of being human. This moment in time we call Christmas. It happened 2,021 earth years ago. In about the year AD 30 the human race entered into the in-between time which we occupy today.

Today’s reading was written for the people of God living in an in-between time. The prophet Baruch, a companion of the prophet Jeremiah, accompanied the people of Judah into exile after the fall of Jerusalem in 586BCE. His message in 580BCE was one of encouragement and assurance that God had not forgotten the people of Jerusalem but would in due time rescue them and bring them home. This in-between time continued for at least another four decades during which many exiles died and it was their descendants, who grew up in exile, who experienced God’s promised redemption.

Baruch reminds us that faithfulness and trust in God’s love is what we are to cultivate during our in-between time as we look forward in hope to the future God has in mind.

Bible Reading: Baruch 4:21-30 (in the Apocrypha); Zechariah 9:9-10; John 12:12-16.
[To my readers: Next OMP is January 18, 2022; a Blessed Christmas and a Happy New Year]