The name “Baruch” heads the book from which today’s reading is taken, and there is a reasonably well-known Baruch in the Old Testament – the secretary to the prophet Jeremiah. It’s highly unlikely, however, that this Baruch wrote all of this very short book. Perhaps this Baruch wrote part of the book, but it looks as if today’s first reading came from a different source. Today’s passage shows every sign of having been written a considerable time after the exile, because the author refers to, but doesn’t directly quote, a famous passage from the part of the book of Isaiah that was written towards the end of the Israelites’ time in exile. This is, of course, the passage applied to John the Baptist in today’s Gospel.
The beauty of prophetic, poetic images in the Bible is that they allow us to apply our own understanding of what they mean to our lives. It would be unhelpful to offer a detailed list of all the ways in which we could apply the references to mountains and valleys in our lives. Those mountains of Baruch, Isaiah and John the Baptist could represent anything that blocks our awareness of God in our lives. We have to identify these for ourselves. Likewise, the valleys might represent the gulf that exists either between ourselves and God, or between ourselves and other people. Mountains and valleys might be a good way of expressing what we need to get rid of, if we are to love God with all our energy, and our neighbors as ourselves.