Waiting on the World to Change
Advent IV, December 22nd, 2013
Matthew 1:18-25
First Baptist Church West Jefferson
Will you pray with me?
God of life
and love, what do you dream about? What is your dream for us? May we hear that
word today. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Do you
believe in dreams? It
was a few days before Christmas. A woman woke up one morning and told her
husband, "I just dreamed that you gave me a pearl necklace for Christmas.
What do you think this dream means?" "Oh," her husband replied,
"you'll know the day after tomorrow." The next morning, she turned to
her husband again and said the same thing, "I just dreamed that you gave
me a pearl necklace for Christmas. What do you think this dream means?"
And her husband said, "You'll know tomorrow." On the third morning,
the woman woke up and smiled at her husband, "I just dreamed again that
you gave me a pearl necklace for Christmas. What do you think this dream
means?" And he smiled back, "You'll know tonight." That evening,
the man came home with a small package and presented it to his wife. She was
delighted. She opened it gently. And when she did, she found a book! And the
book's title was "The Meaning of Dreams."
The question returns again, do you
believe in dreams? We hear Matthew’s account of a dream and we hear it loud and
clear. An angel shows up and says in angelic fashion, “Don’t be afraid.” Now
normally when an angel shows up, it’s a good idea to be afraid, because
Joseph’s dream changed the course of history. It changed the very reality of
our world by Joseph’s obedience to his dream. So the question becomes not do
you believe in dreams, but to echo what Michael said last week, what are you
waiting for?
Too many times we find ourselves
waiting on the world to change. John Mayer even wrote a Grammy award winning
song of the same name. We’re all here warm and cozy in church talking about the
most incredible moment of all time and I guarantee some of you are making your
last minute shopping lists and grocery plans. We’re waiting on the world to
change. Why not be a little more like Joseph and Mary and believe in the dreams
that change history.
What if Dr. King hadn’t believed in
his dream? What if Nelson Mandela on Robben Island hadn’t dreamed that
apartheid could end? What if Mother Teresa had abandoned her dream that people
deserved healthcare on the streets of Calcutta? What if you abandon your dream?
What could the world be missing out on as you wait on the world to change
without your dreams in place?
As we approach the culmination of
our Advent season I’d like to challenge you to dream again. Dream like you’ve
never dreamed before. Because, as Frederick Buechner put it, “If the Christmas tale is true, it is the chief of all
truths. What keeps the wild hope of Christmas alive in a world notorious for
dashing all hopes is the haunting dream that the Child may be born again in us
- in our needing, in our longing for him."
Friends do you see this truth beyond
all truths, we don’t celebrate Advent, we ARE advent. We are the present and
real coming of God to earth in our time for as Teresa of Avilla said, “Christ has no body but yours,
no hands, no
feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on
this world”
So here we are, sitting on the vast
expanse of Christmas about to dive into a world of joy and delight as family
draws near and presents opened and candles lit. We stand with great
expectations for what is about to happen and it’s time to start dreaming again.
It’s like my dog Rusty. You see Rusty loves riding in the car, and whenever I
am home in Statesville he hangs out with my dad. When my dad is out in the yard
working on chores he will put Rusty in the passenger seat of the car with the
car door open. Now my dad doesn’t call Rusty by his name because they both have
the same name, so he calls Rusty, Little Man. Little Man sits in the side seat
of the car and with anticipation for God knows what wags his tail the entire
time he is in the car. He has no idea what, if anything is about to happen but
he knows that if it does happen it will be grand.
Friends like my dog we have no
earthly conception of what Christmas might bring this year, but I can assure
you when God bursts onto the scene it is grand. So this season of Advent, let
expectancy and hope and love and peace and joy envelop you in a world of grace.
What if God showed up in your dream?
Would you have the courage of Joseph to say yes? What if God showed up in your
life? Would you have the grace of the Virgin Mother to give your life for the
advancement of God’s dream for the world? These answers are life-changing, and
yes we are asked the very same questions today.
You all know this story could have
gone terribly wrong, correct? Even if Joseph had dismissed Mary quietly word
would have gotten out and during that time in society Mary would have met a not
so great ending. We have the hope of Christmas because people were obedient to
their dreaming. They were obedient to what God had called them to. They were
obedient to the incarnation, to Emmanuel.
So this year as we light candles, as
we sing carols, we dream. We dream of a teenage mother who doesn’t have all the
answers but accompanies her fiancé to be taxed in Bethlehem of Judea. We dream
of the child who would save us all, and in our dreaming we see that God was with
us. God is with us, and God will be with us for the rest of our existence. So
may you rest and learn to dream again in the majesty of God’s grace and the
hope of all creation.
If God shows up this year, be
prepared for what might happen. One of the lines to John Mayer’s classic Waiting on the World to Change goes
something like this: “It’s hard to be persistent when you’re standing at a
distance.” Friends I think God realized that long before John Mayer did. God
realized that persistence from a heavenly distance wasn’t working with a
hard-headed, stubborn people like us. So as St. Iranaeus famously said ‘God
became like us so that we might become like God.”
What does that look like for you?
What does God’s dream of persistence and patience for our lives look like for
us? Deeper than that how are you living it out? How are you making God’s dream
your reality?
The greatest gift you can give
yourself this Advent season is to believe in the dreams that God has given you.
Believe in the calling placed on your life, believe in the hope that the
incarnation is here to stay and that God has surrounded you with love, joy,
hope and peace this season and all the days of your life.
I must confess that I haven’t always
believed in dreams. I’m a skeptic, I don’t buy into people’s dreams easily. But
all of that was humbled this past week with none other than my little brother
Scott. You see Scott is one of my favorite people in the world, and I want
what’s best for him So six months ago when he started voice lessons I thought
it would be a passing fad. He had other things he was so much better at that
would make colleges notice him. I wanted to cry when he told me that he was
going to be auditioning for the Hayes School of Music at Appalachian because I
knew that his dream of singing might be crushed by people he would never meet
sitting behind a desk. I knew the odds were against him.
You see Appalachian’s admissions
process to the School of Music goes a little like this: You send in a video
recording and they call you back if they’d like to hear more from you. Well
last night Scott got that call. Scott received the phone call that his dream
was alive and well, and that my own ignorance to his dream was only hindering
myself. So needless to say today I stand as a proud brother of a kid who will
be auditioning at one of the most prestigious music schools in the state.
Believe in the dreams of the ones
you love. God
worked 2000 years ago through a young and wonderful woman, and her husband who
believed in her and believed in his dreams. That miracle can occur again and
again. Believe in dreams this Christmas, and God will appear. Stop waiting on
the world to change church, and start dreaming again.
All glory, honor and power be to the One who was, who is, and who is to come. Amen.
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