Children see the world differently.
For a toddler, a caterpillar is a miracle. For a kindergartener, a tall pine is a modern marvel. For any kid wearing galoshes, water is as much for joy as it is for survival.
Then, somewhere in our childhood – in adolescence, maybe – peer pressure mounts to outgrow such youthful feelings of awe and wonder. Shunning such foolishness, nominally mature adults obsess over facts and drill deep into data. Grown-ups admire those who provide common-sense answers and worship those offering practical solutions. Awe and wonder are zero-sum games, and dreaming big is for fools.
And further spreads the gaping, manmade breach between us and the Lord.
But in honest confession of our tendency to keep God at arm’s length, our prayers fill the gap that our wonderless-ness and anemic dreaming have spawned. To riff on the novel and the movie:
Folks think pleasing you is all you care about, God of the Manger. But any fool living in the world can see you always trying to please us back. Yes, I say. You are always making little surprises and springing them on us when we least expect.
So forgive us, God of Bethlehem, for regularly “walk[ing] by the color purple in a field somewhere and [not noticing] it.” Teach us again the ways of awe and wonder. Remind us that the kingdom of God belongs to those who with child-like vision see the world differently.
And just like that: Surprise! Surprise! Surprise! The Holy Spirit reorients our focus. Hearts and minds flowing with awe and wonder gaze upon a broken and fearful world and easily spot God’s constant springing of surprises. Souls and spirits, renewed by fresh possibility, dream of even greater things to come.
You can’t help but join the psalmist in rejoicing – seeing the world differently, as with the eyes of an eager child:
When the LORD brought home his exiled people, it was like a dream!
We were filled with laughter, and we sang for joy. And the other nations said, “What amazing things the LORD has done for them.” Yes, the LORD has done amazing things for us! What joy! Restore our fortunes, LORD, as streams renew the desert. Those who plant in tears will harvest with shouts of joy.
They weep as they go to plant their seed, but they sing as they return with the harvest. (Psalm 126:1-6)
Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!
How does a weary world rejoice? By allowing ourselves to be amazed! You sow in tears and reap shouts of joy. God is more than able: In Christ, offering true promise of further refreshment for the weary; by the Spirit, stirring and enlivening new possibility through pipe dreams.
So, dream big, my friends! Find reason to rejoice in Advent’s hope and assurance! Listen to the Word that God has spoken, as we continue the lead-up-to-Christmas story of Elizabeth’s unexpected pregnancy and the return of her husband Zechariah’s voice.
Listen to the Word that God has spoken, listen to the One who is close at hand.
Listen to the Voice that began Creation, listen even if you don’t understand.
Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son.
Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her.
On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him Zechariah after his father. But his mother said, “No! He is to be called John.” They said to her, “None of your relatives has this name.” Then they began motioning to his father to find out what name he wanted to give him. He asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And all of them were amazed.
Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue freed, and he began to speak, praising God. Fear came over all their neighbors, and all these things were talked about throughout the entire hill country of Judea. All who heard them pondered them and said, “What then will this child become?” For, indeed, the hand of the Lord was with him.
Then his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke this prophecy:
“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them. He has raised up a mighty savior for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.
“Thus he has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors, and has remembered his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham, to grant us that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.
“And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins. By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
The child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day he appeared publicly to Israel. (Luke 1:57-80)
Last month, after enjoying a weeklong retreat for pastors in Little Rock, Arkansas, my trip home included a swing through Memphis to visit the Lorraine Motel, the site of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination.
The hallowed site is now home to the National Civil Rights Museum, and I spent an afternoon learning from its exhibits – including one dedicated to what arguably is Dr. King’s most famous speech.
He didn’t make it up on the spot. He intended to use snippets of earlier sermons or speeches – often one and the same with Dr. King. He began speaking from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, and his close colleagues instantly recognized familiar tones and cadences from earlier messages.
But just then, before throngs of civil rights supporters stretching far into distance of the Washington Monument, Dr. King’s colleagues standing behind him urged him off script. “Tell them about the dream, Martin. Tell them about the dream!”
And thus they began to flow – some of the most famously lyric words in all of human oratory: “I have a dream.”
The next moments unspooled the contours of that dream. And it began to feel less like a dream and more like an achievable reality – a thrill of hope, a reason to rejoice. The crowd’s vigor and energy were tangible and palpable.
And when Dr. King finally capped what we now know as his “I Have a Dream” speech, when he insisted that the words of an old, Negro spiritual soon would be realized, “Free at last! Free at last! Thanks God Almighty we are free at last” – well, simply letting those lyrics wash over the weary and downtrodden made everyone there that day already feel a little more free.
Dreams tend to do just that. Which is what the psalmist – and later, Elizabeth and Zechariah – knew by firsthand experience:
“Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their bumper crop of sheaves.”
Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message during worship on the third Sunday of Advent, December 3, 2023, at First Presbyterian Church in Waukon, Iowa, USA. “How does a weary world rejoice?” is the theme for this year’s Advent. It draws on resources from SantifiedArt.org. Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by Cecelia D. Armstrong, Lisle Gwinn Garrity, Scott Hoezee, and Alice Walker inform the message. In the early Church, Advent, like Lent, lasted 40 days. Known as the “Nativity Fast” or “Winter Lent,” those 40 days began in early November. Drawing on that tradition, our Advent will last five weeks instead of the usual four.