Christmas 1

Christmas 1Theme: Dreams!Matthew 2:13-23 

Readings:

Isaiah 63:7-9 - Isaiah recounts the steadfast love of the Lord. 
Matt. 2:13-23 - the flight to Egypt.

Hebrews 2:10-18 - the humanness of Jesus.

When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. "Get up," he said, "take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him." [14] So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, [15] where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: "Out of Egypt I called my son." [16] When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. [17] Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: [18] "A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted because they are no more." [19] After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt [20] and said, "Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child's life are dead." [21] So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. [22] But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, [23] and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets: "He will be called a Nazarene."

Martin Luther King will be remembered throughout the world not only for his wonderful work for human rights, but also for his speech, "I have a dream!" 

Of course, his dream wasn't a dream as such. In other words, it didn't arrive in his head at night while he was asleep. It was more of a strongly held hope for the future, a hope which was so powerful that it could almost be seen. It was a vision which remained with him throughout his life, and for which he worked unceasingly. 

It's very clear that the vision Martin Luther King held of the future was God's work within him. He was convinced that his cause was right and just. And that conviction affected millions of other people throughout the world so that in due time his dream was realized and equality between the races has become a reality. Or almost a reality. Of course, there's still some way to go until all people throughout the world are truly equal, but at least the principle of equality is now almost universally recognized as right and desirable and is enshrined in law. 

The characters in the Bible would have recognized Martin Luther King's experience. Many dreams and visions are recorded throughout the pages of the Old and New Testaments and have often dramatically changed events. For the dream was known to be a medium through which God often spoke to his people. And it was so powerful and so accepted a medium, that many biblical dreams are recorded as though they're fact.

Some Bible dreams are very strange to modern eyes and ears. The book of Revelation with its dream sequences is almost impossible to understand without some means of interpretation. But that's perhaps because the visual images evoked are images which belong to the first century. If those dreams were received by someone in the West today, they would probably be much more obvious. For they'd be peopled with characters modern human beings in the Western world know and recognise.

Although like Alice in Wonderland our dreams take us into a different world, a world where strange things happen and logic appears to be absent, our dreams are always recognisable in some way. And with a bit of help in the interpretation, it's often possible to see deep-felt anxieties emerging through the medium of a dream. Although we may suppress anxieties during our waking moments, we lose those inhibitions during sleep, so that fears and worries can rise to the level of consciousness, albeit in disguise.

And it seems to me, that the dream is still an excellent medium for God's words. Not only through enabling us to face our problems in a manageable way, but also in giving us guidance when we need it. One of the difficulties in hearing God's voice can be that our waking minds are so active. Life today is busy, and our active minds reflect that busyness. There is little time for silence and reflection. But during sleep the mind loses its conscious inhibitions, so perhaps God's voice is no longer suppressed by busy thoughts, but can get through to consciousness.

It's often possible to go to sleep worrying about which direction to take, but waking up either with the beginnings of a tentative idea or with a very clear answer. And we may not even remember the dream!

We're told very little in the New Testament about Joseph, the father of Jesus, but we do know about his four dreams, dreams which changed the course of history. The first dream came when he discovered Mary his fiancée was pregnant, and Joseph knew he wasn't the father. Being a kind and gentleman, and one who loved his fiancée, he had decided to quietly ditch her. But he had a dream in which an angel told him to continue with his plans to marry Mary and make a home with her.

The second dream came after the child had been born, and the three kings had visited with their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Perhaps they told Joseph they'd visited King Herod for directions. And Joseph, knowing Herod's reputation for cruelty and his jealous guarding of his royal rank and privileges, was worried about Herod's reaction. And so Joseph was warned in a dream to take his wife Mary and the child and to get out of Bethlehem as quickly as he could. So the little family fled into Egypt, the land of a former biblical dreaming Joseph, Joseph of the many-coloured dream coat. But even there, in exile and far away from their own country, God was still with the Holy Family.

When Herod died, Joseph was told in another dream to take the child back to Israel. He followed his dream, but when the little family arrived in Israel and discovered Herod's son was ruling, Joseph's fears returned. The way forward became clear through yet another dream. Joseph remained in Israel, but not in the capital city. Instead, he went to the country district of Galilee where he made a home for the family in a town called Nazareth.

Four occasions when the choice Joseph made was crucial. It's interesting that it wasn't Mary the holy mother to whom the angels appeared, but Joseph. Joseph who apparently had no physical connection with the baby, and who might well have been very resentful of the fact that he was responsible for a child who wasn't his. But he made his choices for the welfare of the whole family. If he had made a different choice at any of those four points, perhaps we would never have known the savior of the world. Imagine what might have happened if Joseph had woken up and said, "It was only a dream!"

But Joseph doesn't seem to have had any doubts at all about the validity of his dreams. Instead, he took immediate action. As soon as he woke from dreaming, he changed course and set out in the new direction. He could have been wrong. He could have interpreted his dreams wrongly. He could have moved in quite the wrong direction. But he took that risk and changed the course of history.

It isn't easy to follow a dream. It isn't easy to be a Martin Luther King and stick to your vision, when you may be roundly criticized from all quarters and full of self-doubt. It isn't easy to be a Joseph and change your course of action on the strength of a dream. But it's very easy in retrospect to see that God was working through both those men.


We're told that dreams are essential for our mental health. I think perhaps they may be essential for our spiritual health as well. And how good it is to think that God visits us while we are asleep, and all we have to do when we wake up is to follow our dream.