It was an uncomfortable situation not unlike that faced by millions of families for thousands of years. An unplanned pregnancy. Joseph intended to act as a gentleman and quietly break off the engagement, but then something happened to change the way he saw the situation. A dream. In his dream an angel invites him to reinterpret Mary's pregnancy. First the angel said what angels always say: "Do not be afraid." The angels always say that. Don't be afraid. Angels know that fear is almost never a good motivation. Angels know what we occasionally intuit. God is in charge. We're all safe ultimately. Fear is unnecessary. Don't be afraid. Even when your most precious hopes and plans are being threatened.
And then the angel in Joseph's dream offers him another way to look at Mary's expectancy. It will be the means of God being-with-us, Emmanuel. Then a miracle occurred! Joseph believed the dream and acted on it. And for him, everything changed. He had a wife, and he had a son. And indeed, God was with them. Before the dream, things looked bleak and tragic. But after the dream, everything looked different.
Some years ago when doctors became able to remove cataracts, they operated on dozens of people who had been blind since birth. For the first time these people could see. Many of them were astounded at what they experienced. When the bandages were unwrapped for one patient, he looked at a human hand, not recognizing its function, and described it as "something bright and then holes." Another patient was utterly astounded that each person visiting had an entirely different face. Who knew? There was a little girl who stood in her garden amazed beyond speech. Then she took hold of what she called "the tree with the lights in it." One woman was so overwhelmed by it all that she had to shut her eyes again for a couple of weeks. Then as she began to look, she saw everything with an expression of amazement and gratitude, repeatedly exclaiming "Oh God! How beautiful!"
In his delightful book Sparks of the Divine, Drew Leder writes:
When the anxious bridegroom Joseph responded to the divine light in an angelic message within the ordinary container of a dream, it was tikkun -- an act of cosmic restoration. For Mary, it was release from public disgrace. For Jesus, it was the gift of a father. For the cosmos. Well, it was the coming of Emmanuel -- "God-with-us."
God is with us in the most ordinary of things. We see that in the Christmas story. God is with us in a census and in a stable, in cattle and shepherds. This child whose birth is foretold will open eyes to see God-with-us in the fall of a sparrow and lilies in the field, in a grain of wheat and a good catch of fish, in a mustard seed and a leper, in gates and doors, in sweeping, seeking, sewing, in bread and wine.
When we let God remove the cataracts from our eyes, we can see "Oh God, how beautiful!" is the whole universe. The wonder of each breath we take, bringing life giving spirit into our very depths. The amazing gifts of sun and rain, the groundedness of trees reaching into the heavens. The mystery of the cold earth of winter, life dying away on the surface while new forms are resting, renewing their strength for springs rebirth. The strength of transcendent mountains and the depths of teeming oceans, symbols of love's power and mystery.
There is a way of experiencing every dream, every face, every cloud, every tree, every task, every moment as a container of divine light waiting to be opened. Living that way is sometimes called enlightenment. It is our response to the Advent cry, "Awake!"
In this season of Advent, we are waiting expectantly for the birth of the child. Part of our task is to allow the child to be reborn within us. Those of you who are fortunate enough to spend part of this holiday with a toddler will get to enjoy the surprise and wonder of experiencing Christmas vicariously through the eyes of a child. It takes only a little intention to renew our own childlike gaze at the world we grownups so easily take for granted. My dog Kitty spins in circles whenever I say, "Are you hungry? Do you want something to eat?" With a little intention I can be that delighted at the prospect of dinner. My dog loves to come with me to work. When she sees me with my collar on and I say "Do you want to go to work?" she nearly jumps out of her skin with joy. With a little intention, I can be that happy at the opportunity to go and do what I am called to do.
And even at the darkest times, when we are most within the shadow of death in all its guises. If our eyes are open, light breaks through. Sometimes I wonder if the transition out of this world is not similar to the transition into it. For the child in the womb, life is so good. Warm, safe, protected. Fed, nurtured, predictable. How distressing it must feel like to enter labor and to struggle into a new place with strange light and boundless borders.
Maybe death is like that as well. I once had a friend, Alan, who had a life after life experience. He was one of those who died -- the nurse and the monitor detected no vital signs -- and then he woke again. Alan said he had gone through a long tunnel and seen Jesus walking toward him in a field. He asked for a little more time to tell his family goodbye. "Well, okay, but you don't have long." And returned and made his farewells that afternoon. He died peacefully at dinner time.
We know the story about this child of Mary and Joseph. The shadow of death crosses over his birth. But that death is also a spark of the divine that invites us to heed the angelic message and to be not afraid even of death. For God is with us.
God is with us in our pots and pans, in our alarm clocks and cars, in our work and play, in our sunshine and rain. God is with us in bread and wine, in packages and trees, in light and dark, in our waking and in our dreaming, in our living and in our dying. O Come, O Come Emmanuel. Rejoice. Rejoice. Emmanuel shall come to Israel and to thee as well.