|
Day 22 - Sunday, December 21, 2025
Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be pregnant from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to divorce her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
Matthew 1:18-20
This is the part of the Advent/Christmas story we prefer glossing over. We like the story in its finished state - not the messy version riddled with detours, misunderstandings, and improvisation. The latter is too much like life! Yet here are the facts: a husband-to-be discovers his fiancé has been unfaithful to him and determines to wash his hands of her and the child she carries.
And but for a dream, this is the way the story of Jesus' birth would have nearly ended before it began.
You have to wonder about that dream - and all of the dreams Joseph had dreamed before it (about what it would be like to get married and have a family). He had been preparing for one kind of life and suddenly had to pivot to embrace an entirely different kind of life. Perhaps the dream that led to a new understanding (and a new life) between Joseph and Mary had something to do with all of the other pivots Joseph had experienced in his life.
If you had asked me at the start of my career as a pastor, in the summer of 1993 at my ordination alongside Vicki, how I envisioned the culmination of my service 32 years later, I couldn't have imagined serving as a half-time pastor of media and communications and a full-time school bus driver. There's a wonderful promise in Ephesians about God's love providing for us beyond what we can hope for or imagine.
That's the life I'm living - beyond a dream - alongside my wife and a congregation driven by a passion to love our neighbors like we love and seek God - with everything we've got. Perhaps Joseph got to experience that same kind of surprising grace and joy as he lived with Mary and Jesus beyond the dream.
Prayer of Blessing:
May we continually be struck with awe and amazement at the resilience of faith, hope, and love in our improvisational lives. May we not be afraid of making plans or changing them as we experience the continuities and discontinuity of life. And may we savor the sweet joy of unimagined grace surrounding and summoning us in love.
Submitted by Rev. Dr. Bo Gordy-Stith
| 
