The night was destined to be anything but silent. Oh there may have been some quiet spaces between a scene change or two. Perhaps the evening contained moments of hushed adoration, picturesque enough for a Christmas card. But those were the exceptions. Outliers, in a sacred story otherwise filled with noise.

Given the tale’s prequel, this non-silent night shouldn’t be too much of a surprise.

I mean, come on, angels! When they pop up it can’t help but create some buzz.

Winged divinity excitedly shared news of this most excellent development with two soon-to-be, unexpected parents. How did Mary and Joseph feel about what they’d heard?

Initially perplexed, afraid, unwilling.
Later joyous, blessed, determined.

Sure enough, were they, of this immaculate conception, they set about following the path laid out to them, from above.

Despite the challenges that might create.

Mary was so overwhelmed by it all she burst into song. Excitedly celebrating what this child, that grew within, would later do.

Her voice still echoes through the generations, even now. Especially now.

It’s Magnificat.

But what of Mary’s parents?
What of Joseph’s?
What of the neighbors?

How would they react upon hearing this same news?

Engaged pregnant young mothers tend to get people talking, don’t they? Especially when the fiancée isn’t the father. Especially when the young mother has never been with a man.

My guess? The volume in some of *those* conversations, with parents, and in-laws, and neighbors, and friends, created some decibels.

And if there was silence during these exchanges?
It certainly wasn’t of the peaceful variety.

Trip
As the newlyweds traveled, from their hometown for the census, drama couldn’t help but follow. Moving through the land of Caesar Augustus must have been surreal for this holy family. Caesar was known to many as the great king of peace. But his brand of peace came about by wars, at much human cost.

How would it be when the true king of peace arrived? When earthly rulers feel threatened they tend to speak in anything *but* hushed tones. Did Mary and Joseph know the cacophony of sounds, from world leaders, this baby would later bring?

As they drew closer to their destination birth pangs beset Mary. The two needed a place to stay. And soon. I like to think Joseph, ever the dutiful husband, pleaded for a room with whoever would listen.

Please, I beg of you, my wife is about to give birth! Don’t you have somewhere we could stay? Anywhere? Time is running out!

The pleas were heard, though accommodations were less than ideal. Any animals there, in that nativity set of unknown contents, would be up to their normal animally thing.

Neighhhhh
Bahhhhhh
Moooooo

And what of Mary? What sounds did she make birthing the divine? For you parents, think back to your own children’s birth days. Make sure to adjust *that* volume accordingly. How quiet were you?

Fields
The scene then changes to a rural field.

And there were shepherds, giving instructions.
And there were sheep, making sheepy sounds.

And there was an angel.
And there was fear.

Which couldn’t help but be followed by pointed fingers, shouts and screams.

Winged divinity, if anything, knows how to make an appearance.

The angel then calmed the shepherd’s fears,
Sharing good news, of great joy,
For all the people.

A savior, the Messiah, was born.

A celestial GPS then illuminated the path to where the baby would be found.

The starry skyline then filled with a heavenly host too numerous to count.

Each singing, at the top of their lungs –

Glory to God in the highest,
Peace on earth, to all.

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The angels then exit, stage up. Perhaps that quieted things down for a bit. Before long the shepherds got excitedly talking about all they’d seen and heard.

We’ve gotta get to Bethlehem, they said.
We’ve gotta see this thing that’s happened.
It kinda sounds like a pretty big deal.

So they went.
And they found.
Mary, and Joseph, and child.

Sing
If there was silence to be had, this seminal night, the time had finally come.

This must be the Silent Night moment.
This must be the scene the song asks us to enter.

A scene where –
All is calm, all is bright,
Shepherds quake, at the sight.

Holy infant, so tender and mild,
Sleep in heavenly peace,
Sleep, in heavenly peace.

The scene then closes.
The silence then lifts.
The shepherds then depart.

Share
The shepherds then shared what had been told them about this child.
And all who heard it were amazed at what they’d been told.

The shepherds glorified God,
The shepherds praised God,
For all they had seen,
For all they had heard.

And they were anything *but* quiet about it.

How do I know?

Because two millennia later,
We still tell this tale,
As if it were yesterday.

Close
As we make final preparations, in our hearts and in our homes, for the coming of a baby, wrapped in swaddling clothes, let us celebrate the peace Christ brings.

Let us make room for calm and quiet too often more the exception than the norm.

But let us remember this, as well. The world of two-thousand years ago was not wrapped up in a nice little red package with a shiny green bow on it.

It was fully human.
It was full of noise.

There were –
Unwed mothers,
Difficult circumstances,
Inconvenient truths,
Uncertain earthly peace,
Unstable earthly rulers.

It is in this context, of chaotic calamity, that Christ came.
A context perhaps not too different than our own.

It is amid life’s noise where we’re offered –
Peace, and quiet, and the hope of a silent night.
Despite what may swirl all around.

For Christ is with us, in our silent nights.
But more importantly in our really loud nights too.

Come soon, Jesus.
Grant us your peace.  Amen.

An Advent4 message on Matthew 1:18-25

Do you dream? Scientific studies suggest yes, you do. Everyone does. Every single night. Every time you sleep. For about two hours out of an eight-hour sleep cycle. If you think of the billions of people who have lived, throughout history, collectively they’ve had trillions and trillions of dreams.

Which is kind of tough to wrap your head around.

Many dreams are quickly forgotten, never making it to our conscious mind.
Some are remembered, for a time, perhaps shared with friends and family.
And precious few are written down and stay with us even longer.

What is it about dreams that make them memorable? That make them stick around long after they’ve originally been dreamed? Often it’s that they inspire something in the real world. Which makes them not just dream, but reality.

Today’s message highlights seven such dreams, and what they’ve inspired.

Sometimes dreams inspire song.  One hard day’s night in 1965 Paul McCartney found himself deep in slumber, composing a song while dreaming. When he awoke he quickly replicated the song on his piano and then wrote it down. It wasn’t a small musical fragment or just any tune, he composed the entire melody of a Beatle’s classic. All while deep in REM sleep.

Sir Paul was convinced he’d inadvertently copied the song, so he asked other musicians, for a month, whether they’d heard it before. When no else claimed it after a few weeks he figured the tune was his. These memorable chords were birthed, entirely, from dream.

Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away…

Dreams can inspire story. Robert Louis Stevenson wrote for a living to support his family. That is until his case of writer’s block in 1886. For days he went about racking his brain for a plot.

Nothing would come.

Then one night he dreamed up a scene where a character, being pursued for a crime, took powder and became someone else. Right in front of his pursuers.

The dream jarred Stevenson so much he screamed in the middle of the night, causing his wife to wake him. “Why did you wake me?” he asked his wife. “I was dreaming a fine boogeyman tale.

In an era before typewriters and laptops, Stevenson then put pen to paper. And in less than six days he’d handwritten 64,000 words, a minor miracle at the time.

The book went on to sell millions of copies worldwide. The story even inadvertently coined a phrase still used to describe dual personalities, swinging between good and evil. The book? The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

And more often than you might think, dreams inspire science.

Such was the case with Niels Bohr. Known for his ability to decipher complex physics problems, Bohr set his sights on understanding the structure of the atom. But none of his configurations would fit. He was stumped. Then one night he went to sleep and began dreaming about atoms. He saw the nucleus of the atom, with electrons spinning around it, much as planets spin around the sun.

When waking the next morning Bohr immediately felt the vision was right. But he knew, as a scientist, he needed to validate the theory. His efforts soon yielded evidence of the atom’s design. Other scientists then replicated his findings. And before you know it Bohr was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery.  These days Bohr is considered the father of quantum mechanics.

And it all stemmed from a leap, in creative thinking, that stemmed from dream.

Sometimes dreams inspire society, coming to us while we’re still wide awake.

Martin Luther King Jr. had been using the language of dreams in sermons for several years before his famous 1963 speech. Given from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC, in front of 250,000 civil rights supporters, King initially spoke from prepared remarks.

Towards the end of his speech, friend and gospel singer Mahalia Jackson cried out “Tell them about the dream, Martin!” So he did. In it, he imagines a world of different design, where all people are treated as equal.

The speech later led to a slew of new legislation, including the 1960s Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act, and Fair Housing Act. While we still haven’t arrived, in many ways, when it comes to issues of race in the US, the speech still stays with us. Still points us to a brighter future.

All because of the power of the language of dreams.

Dreams can inspire identity. Such was the case for Jacob, son of Isaac, brother to Esau. Jacob, after stealing his father’s blessing, and running from the brother he stole it from, a brother who was looking to kill him, had a dream. In this dream there was a ladder, set on earth. The ladder went straight up to heaven, with angels ascending and descending on it. In the dream God promised Jacob the land where he slept. And promised his offspring would be blessed.

Awakening from the dream Jacob’s fears had now been released. No longer scared, he now knew God’s plans. He then pursued God’s plans. Jacob found work, then married, having twelve children. Children who each became heads of their own family groups, later known as the twelve tribes of Israel.

Jacob dreamed, as inspired by God. A dream that helped birth a blessed people.

Dreams, sometimes, inspire trust. That definitely applies to Joseph, he of the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Genesis records all sorts of dreams Joseph was part of. As a young man, he dreamed he’d one day rule over his brothers and parents. As you might guess when he shared that great with family it went over like a lead balloon. Not liking Joseph’s interpretation one bit, his brothers dropped him in a pit, leaving him alone, with no way out.

After being found, and then enslaved, Joseph then rose through the palace ranks. Eventually, he gained the trust of Pharaoh himself by interpreting a troubling dream Pharaoh had. Those seven frail cows who ate the seven fat cows in the dream? That means seven good years, of harvest, followed by seven bad years, of famine. Plan wisely, Joseph suggested.

Pharaoh did. And all that came to pass. With trust now gained, Joseph was able to provide for his family, fulfilling that first dream over a decade after having it.

Every-so-often, when the planets align, and the divine descends down among us, dreams inspire hope. Our final dream story begins with another Joseph. One engaged to a girl named Mary.

This Joseph, by all accounts, was a stand-up guy. He followed the customs of the day. When he and Mary were betrothed they still lived apart. And before getting married, before moving in together, before doing anything overly interesting Joseph learned, suddenly, mysteriously, his fiancée was with child.

And Joseph was not the daddy.

Uh oh.

It’s a storyline good enough for a telenovela.

Oh the thoughts that must have raced through his brain.
Mary’s explanation couldn’t have provided much solace.

Not wanting to disgrace his beloved, but now not wanting to commit to her either, Joseph made plans to quietly part ways.

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At least not the way Joseph thought it was supposed to be.

He’d found someone he cared for.

They began to make plans.
Plans for their home.
Plans for their family.
Plans to celebrate.

Their life trajectory, as far as Joseph was concerned, had been all planned out.
And now *this*

Why me? Joseph must have wondered.

It is against this backdrop Joseph laid down his head to sleep.
It is under these circumstances when Joseph began to dream.

Dream
In it an angel came to him, calming his fears. The angel asked Joseph to take Mary as his wife. For the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

She will bear a Son, the angel continued.
Name him Jesus. For he will save his people from themselves.

All will be as spoken,
through the prophet,
A virgin shall conceive,
And bear a son.

And they shall name him Emmanuel.
Which means God is with us.

The angel then departed.
Joseph then awoke.

Joseph then did, as the angel of the Lord, advised.

And a new path, one that Joseph had never planned for, became clear.
A new path, that didn’t impact just –

One woman, or
One man, or
One family.

But left a lasting mark on so many more.

And for the rest of *that* story?
Tune in, Christmas Eve ?

Turn
Dreams have power. Power to take us from our current reality, as great or as awful as it may seem, and lead us to a place so much better.

Dreams inspire song, story, science, society, identity, even trust.

Facing moments of trouble, problems with seemingly no solution, divinely inspired dreams do something marvelous.

They inspire hope.

It is that hope that Joseph woke up with.
It is that hope that enabled him to press on.

Close
Do you dream? Yes, of course, you do. Every single night.

This year may your dreams be of so much more than just visions of sugarplums or even a white Christmas.

Lord, show us your dreams,
Reveal to us your Savior,
Awaken us from our slumber.

Refreshed,
Full of hope.

Not just for today. Or tomorrow. But forever.  Amen.