Advent IV

The Fourth Sunday of Advent

Isaiah 7:10-14; Psalm 24; Romans 1:1-17; Matthew 1:18-24

Mary is discovered to be pregnant before she and her fiancée live together. So to avoid shame all around, Joseph decides to divorce her quietly. Joseph goes to bed. An angel appears in a dream with the message, ‘take Mary as your wife.’ Joseph wakes up, yawns and stretches, and does what the angel commanded him. We have our happy ending.

The story is awfully neat though, isn’t it? What is missing?

Where is the shock, the disbelief, the sense of betrayal, the anger?! It is adultery we are talking about. Where is the pain, the disappointment, the aching heart, the tears? It is divorce that’s being considered.

It is hopes and dreams and futures being dashed.

Hallmark can’t have such scandals. It is Christmas! Their movies must pull at the heart strings, cause a tear to well in the eye, raise a lump in the throat. It is TV after all. Christmas is about sentimentality and warm feelings and memory that never really was.

But we are not dealing with TV, are we? We live messy, unexpected, human lives within complex relationships. Thus the scriptures deal with authentic human situations. And our lives embrace betrayal and anger, pain and disappointment, tears and aching hearts. This is the world that the eternal God, in Jesus, entered. Our world, our messy and complex life situations. How could it be any other way?

How many brides have walked down church aisles – pregnant?

How many abortions have occurred to hide a sexual indiscretion?

How many spouses have known the deep cut of adultery’s betrayal           

…experienced the tearing of life’s fabric and hopes by divorce?

How many of our friends, spouses and children have deeply disappointed us?

How often do parents have to swallow hard at the choices of their children?

How many men have held our feelings, unexpressed, deep within us?

How many people live life out of duty rather than commitment?

We all dream. Dreams of futures for our children, our committed friends, for ourselves. They, like Joseph’s dreams of a happy marriage in a small village, can be dashed. A freak accident occurs and a future dancer or athlete must sit on the side lines. A daughter or son reveals to their parents they are gay and dreams of grandchildren evaporate. A disease, an accident, a suicide occurs and emptiness resides in our heart.

We have all sorts of dreams. What are yours for the people in your life? Do you believe God dreams? What do you think God’s dream is for you and me?

Let me ask another question. Would you rather suffer or watch someone you deeply love suffer? I suspect many of us would rather receive pain than see it experienced in a loved one. Might it be then that is why Joseph believed the angel in his dream? He loved Mary so much he took on her pain? Isn’t that what God in Jesus Christ did for us on the cross?

God dreamed. And when the dream was dashed took on our pain. And carrying the pain together with us birthed new life.

That would seem to be a Christmas story worth telling – worth living.