Advent 4a Dec 23 2007

Who's dream was it anyway?

Joseph was asleep and he did what people do in a deep sleep. He was dreaming.

A little while before he thought he knew what his dreams were and what was coming next in his life. He was engaged to marry a young woman named Mary. He most likely dreamed of having children, building a home, and getting on with life with her. Joseph's plans took a turn with the news that Mary was pregnant. He knew that the child wasn't his; and he chose to look away from his dreams involving her and start over in a new direction. Matthew said he was an honorable man who chose simply to let it be leaving her behind quietly rather than expose her to shame and possibly death by stoning for adultery. Its painful to loose a dream like Joseph; much of our identity is shaped by our hopes and dreams. Its tough to see those hopes and dreams fall away.

We've all got dreams. We've all got things we want to do and things we worry about in time and these things surface in our dreams. Christmas is a great time to talk about dreams. The dream that Mary had as she accepted Jesus. The dream that Joseph had, and the dreams that our kids have of toys and food and fun. As our lives change our dreams can be very different. I know from first hand experience that dreams of a little kid at Christmas are different from the dreams of a teenager and those dreams are different than a dad and I can't imagine what all will change in my dreams over a lifetime.

A friend of mine is married to a woman he calls, “an Olympic class dreamer.” He says that he sort of dreams, but her dreams have more detail than real life does for him. He said that one morning he woke up about a year ago sore after she punched him hard in the shoulder. He woke up startled. It must have been about 5 am when he blurted out, “Ouch” She said that he'd been such a jerk in her dream that she just had to let him know how mad she was at him. He muttered something back like, “Honey whatever it was I'm sorry now and I'm sure I'll be sorry if you just get back to sleep.” “I knew you'd say that, you just said it in my dream. I'm sorry too.” He rolled over and went back to sleep pretty fast. She just couldn't fall back to sleep as easily that night; her dream had been too vivid to let go of so quickly.

Dreams are part of maybe a third of our lives if we sleep 8 hours a day. They can haunt us and move us. They can motivate and transform us. Joseph was asleep when this one particular dream came along. His day to day life sure wasn't going as planned anymore. He had huge decisions to make that he hadn't planned to ever make. Mary was pregnant and he wasn't the father. He could walk away, he could stay and keep the child knowing the secret, or he could demand justice and see that Mary's blood be spilled because of her sin and the disgrace she'd brought to both of them. What do you do when you have a huge decision to make. How many people say, “let me sleep on it.”

He was going to leave Mary behind and start over. He went to bed to sleep on this huge decision that he had just about made. He chose to divorce her quietly rather than publicly demanding her punishment. And he settled down to sleep.

God has dreams all his own. His dreams are sometimes very different than ours and at other times God uses dreams to communicate his will so very vividly with all of us that we our will and God's will becomes one. Maybe you remember these prophetic words,

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

Dreams aren't our reality but they point us to the reality that God is guiding us toward. Martin Luther King is best known for speaking about this dream. It was a dream that moved a nation; because it wasn't his alone indeed this dream was God's. God uses dreams repeatedly and purposefully. Being attentive to God's dreams help us see things through God's eyes and not our own. God uses dreams like Joseph had to show us the world not as it is but as God intends it to be.

In the night an angel appeared in Joseph's dream. The angel began speaking to him calling him by name, “Joseph son of David...” Then came these words of assurance, "fear not..." Sure Joseph had dreams before; but this one dream was different. This one dream wasn't Joseph's own personal property any longer. He shared this dream with God too. Angels, when they appeared in scripture, often started speaking with the words, “fear not.” God's presence has to often been softened in our imaginations. Most people think of angels as chubby little kids who look sweet and innocent. We imagine angels as women or children who are delicate and sweet and soft. We think they scoot around on pillow-soft clouds strumming harps. But the angels of scripture appeared so powerfully and dramatically that they would have inspired fear even if they were encountered in dreams. The angels of God were warriors ready to do battle against evil in all its forms. They came not just to strum little harps they brought messages straight from God to let God's will be known in our world.

The angel said to Joseph, “do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife,” this angel knew exactly what Joseph was planning to do. He knew that Joseph was a good man, a righteous man, who was trying to find a quiet way to protect both himself and Mary from public disgrace. And now he asked Joseph to take on a responsibility that he didn't want. He asked him to take on the possibility of shame that would come from raising a child that wasn't his own. The angel explained plainly something that no one could have imagined, “the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.  She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” Had anyone else said this I doubt that Joseph would have believed. We know where babies come from. But this dream was giving Joseph a sense of peace that he didn't have as he lay down to sleep ready to quietly end his engagement.

In Christmas we see the story of God unfolding in our everyday life. Joseph and Mary were not extraordinary; the child in her body was God in flesh but everything else was so ordinary. The feelings, fears and hopes were so ordinary until the dream came for Mary and she conceived a child without knowing a man and he came to accept that he was called to love this woman and this child regardless of what the wagging tongues in town might say.

Joseph's meeting with an angel in a dream started his life, and the whole world in turn, on a different course than he expected. The prophet Isaiah said, 14 The Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be pregnant. She will have a son, and she will name him Immanuel. 15 He will be eating milk curds and honey when he learns to reject what is evil and to choose what is good. NCV (New Century Version)

Joseph and Mary weren't in this alone. God was going with them into history. He was coming, the angels declared his presence to them, now they both were called to live it out. They had different dreams but both pointed them to what God was up to in this one child Jesus. The dreams were one of God's points of contact in their lives. Even before the dreams they had to word of the prophets to reveal the will of God to them.

The point the angels were making in dreams to Mary and to Joseph, and that Matthew is trying to make for us years later, is that they shared shared in a long standing dream with God. They separately dreamed at night of a child they would call Jesus. The prophets dreamed of the one who we would call Emmanuel; God with us. Christmas is about seeing God's dreams made real in our time.

AMEN

Are you the One Advent 3a 2007

Jesus, are you the one? Or are we to wait for another.

This was John the Baptist's question when he was sitting imprisoned by Herod the King. Jesus said John was the greatest man ever born of woman. He live boldly declaring the word of God out in the wilderness. People came from Jerusalem and all over Judea to meet him, and be baptized by him as they lay down their sins. News of what he said went from the wilderness into the center of society. Even Kind Herod knew what he said. John got into hot water when he said that it was wrong for Herod to marry his brothers wife and Herod locked him away. Herod loved to hear him talk, but he couldn't let him talk like that in public so he had John put in cell. In that cell even he, John the Baptist, this great man of faith and courage had doubts and hopes that mingled together about Jesus.

John's ministry as, baptizer and forerunner, brought him into the imagination of the people and into the prison of King Herod. Jesus said that he was more than a prophet, he was the one to prepare the way, but now he was the one in a cell sending out his followers to meet Jesus. His words outside of the walls of society had been heard by those in power inside the walls. Herod chose to have John locked away. An old teacher of mine, Jim Nestingen wrote,

John’s fate is linked to his Lord’s. So, having heard him sounding forth in the desert the radical freedom of detachment, we find him now doubly attached―in prison, yet held even more firmly by the One whom he has proclaimed (Matt 11:2-11).

John's fate was real, just one enticing dance by a young woman was all it cost in the end to see the Baptist's head on a silver platter (Matthew 14:1-12). His days in prison were days to question and to hope. John's ministry would end but Jesus' would grow. And with Jesus ministry came a new hope, a hope that is not fulfilled in Christmas but in the Cross and Resurrection of the baby born on Christmas.

Early in life John's faith led him outside of society and moved him to call people to repent. He had faith that moved him at his very core to be bold and to preach like no one else. And even he had questions. The mystery of John's appearance in the wilderness bold and strong dressed in a camels hair fasten at the middle with a belt is contrasted today with him sitting in a cell. You'd remember meeting this man out there in the wilderness with a beard eating locusts and wild honey. But now he sits imprisoned questioning if Jesus is the one.

Maybe you know somebody who has hope and doubts all at the same time. John the Baptist had this question for Jesus, “Are you the one?” A great verse in scripture, Hebrews 11:1 says that, “Faith is being sure of what you hope for, and certain of what you do not see.” Faith is hope put into action. Hope comes not because of anything that you've seen, tasted, smelled, or felt with your body. Hope comes from a promise and it depends on the one who made the promise. John had faith, hope, and doubts.

John's own calling as a prophet amazes us today. He lived with boldly with purpose and vision. He wasn't afraid to stand outside of the norm. The normal people sought him out because being normal people wasn't working any more. The gospels leave no doubt that John's call for repentance was heard; but its wasn't universally heeded. Calling for repentance was only part of John's ministry; he was to prepare the way for the one. Imprisoned he wondered if Jesus was the one. It didn't start this way, he was the wild one outside the walls of civilization and now civilization held him in the walls of cell. In that cell he lived on hope.

We've all seen people living on hope; maybe you've been the one living on hope; maybe you are the one right now today who is filled with hope and doubt. Hope is there in the praying dad or mom in the hospital room of the sick child. Hope is real in the marriage counseling session of the troubled couple when one spouse is still praying that it can work. Hope was there when John John the Baptist sent his followers to Jesus with this question. Matthew 11:3, "Art thou the coming one? or are we to wait for another?" 1890 Darby Bible. It's the question Christians have to ask Jesus.

Jesus sent a message back to John.

Matthew 11:4-6

Go, report to John what ye hear and see. ⁵ Blind men see and lame walk; lepers are cleansed, and deaf hear; and dead are raised, and poor have glad tidings preached to them: ⁶ and blessed is whosoever shall not be offended in me. 1890 Darby Bible.

Even John the Baptist, this man who would call so many to repentance needed to hear the good news. Sitting in a prison he needed to hear what God was doing through Jesus. When you live on hope what you see and hear God doing in the world, even if it doesn't change your circumstances, can sustain you. John was sustained in a prison cell by the Good News of Jesus ministry. John's calling was to prepare the way for the one and now in prison John sent out his followers to ask Jesus, "Are you the one?"

Christmas by itself doesn't save us. Jesus came as an infant, but that doesn't save us. He taught and healed, but that doesn't save us. He called for justice and toppled over the money counter's tables in the temple, but that doesn't save us. What saves us is Jesus death on the Cross. At the very center of this church is a reminder of what saves. The cross was an ancient instrument of death. Jesus the baby we celebrate at Christmas grew to a man who would have his arms and feet pierced with spikes before he was hoisted up to die on a blood piece of wood.

John the Baptist's ministry faded away. The crowds came out to be baptized but no more. Now he sat in a cell. He didn't preach to crowds any more. Some committed followers came to see him now and then; but John's public ministry ended as Jesus ministry grew to include more and more of God's people. John's purpose was to prepare the way. Now he asked Jesus, "are you the one?"

“ Go back to John and tell him about what you have heard and seen―the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor. Matthew 11:4-5 New Living Translation

Hope began with John's call for repentance; hope grew as Jesus healed and forgave the hurting; hope died for 3 days as the cross claimed Jesus life; but the love of God did not end. Hope grew fresh from the stump in the resurrection not only that we could have freedom through repentance but that that through Christ crucified and risen we might die to sin, death and the devil. John's message, repent, will forever be linked to Jesus life, dying and rising. He came to prepare the way for hope...