Matthew 1:18-25
“Imagine that” we say in response to a surprising bit of news … “wouldn’t have imagined that in a million years.”
“I can’t imagine how she could have done that.”
“I can’t imagine him doing that.”
“Imagine that!”
Advent is a time of imagination!
We imagine a world waiting … a world waiting for the Messiah … a world holding its breath; a world wondering: “What is God doing?” … “When will God deliver the promise? … “What is God up to?”
We imagine the tumultuous days of the first century … Israel occupied and governed by the iron will of Rome … the difficult trek of Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem, the stable behind the inn … shepherds in their fields by night; angels in realms of glory … a star on high … wise men traveling from afar … the vicious plans of Herod to destroy the child threatening his throne … the flight of Mary and Joseph to Egypt … their return when Herod dies … and so on and so forth … the stories that guide our imagination and shape our faith!
Imagination is the heartbeat of faith.
When elders, deacons and pastors are ordained, one of the questions put to them: “Will you seek to serve the people with energy, intelligence, imagination and love?”
Imagination is vital to a living faith …
But more than imagining the past … imagining the future …
A world that could be … to see beyond the smoke and sorrow, the hurt and pain, the noise and the nonsense … the daily grind of making a living and wondering when death will come.
To imagine the world as God would have it … a world of justice and peace … the world for which Jesus died and rose again … the Bible tells us that Jesus endured the cross for the joy set before Him – the world to be! Jesus died for the world as it is, so that the world might become as it should!
“Imagine that!” we say to one another … imagine a new world …
That’s our calling … it’s our work – never to accept the world as it is, but the world as Jesus would have it!
“Come and follow me,” said Jesus … let’s go to this new world … it’ll be costly, it’ll be hard, it’ll demand of you all that you have, and then some … but it’ll be worth it! Come and follow me!”
“Imagine that!”
Albert Einstein said:
Imagination is more important than knowledge.
Pascal:
Imagination … creates beauty, justice, and happiness, which are everything in this world.
Carl Sagan:
Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were.
Carl Sandburg:
Nothing happens unless first we dream.
“Imagine that!”
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”
“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”
“Imagine that!”
Imagination is the enemy of hell … “Let there be no imagination” cries Satan – “only reality - dull, grating, boring, enervating, irritating reality.”
The deluge of daily news – muggings and murders, war and want, disease and disaster, conflict and competition – keep people on edge, wary and weary … don’t ever let their imagination soar toward heaven; don’t ever let their imagination see a new world.”
I’ve been reading Thomas Merton’s autobiography … his journey from atheism to faith … from a lost and bewildered young man to a servant of the Most High God.
It’s all about imagination … being able to see with the eyes of faith what the physical eye will never see …
To see with the heart, with the soul, with the spirit of Christ.
I’ve had the pleasure of teaching Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol in Morey Plotkin’s Bible Class for the last few weeks.
What a story … the ghost of an idea, as Dickens says … the tale of a miserly old man, entwined in the heavy chains of greed, a soul bereft of joy … a weary spirit without a shred of imagination.
“Imagine that” said Marley’s ghost to Scrooge one night … three ghosts will visit you … the ghost of Christmas Past, the Ghost of Christmas Present, and then, the Ghost of Christmas Future.
“Can’t I have ‘em all at once?” asks Scrooge.
“No,” says Marley. “This will take some time!”
A long dormant imagination wakes slowly from the sleep of death … the process is unrelenting, and it hurts … Scrooge wants to flee, but the Ghosts hold him tight in the grip of love, a violent grace that will not let Scrooge hightail it back into the darkness – the Ghosts drag him, kicking and screaming, into the light … a world of divine imagination!
A world of Christmas joy and delight … parties and dancing … love and family … a world wherein Tiny Tim has a chance … workers given a living wage, charity the preeminent virtue!
“Imagine that.”
I think of Dietrich Bonhoeffer languishing in a Nazi prison – he hears Allied planes overhead; he hears distant bombs exploding – freedom is coming. But will it come in time?
It wasn’t in time for Bonhoeffer.
Days before the prison was liberated by the Allies, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was bound and hooded, walked to a scaffold, and hanged, April 9, 1945 … Flossenburg Concentration Camp.
December, 1944, Bonhoeffer writes a poem included in today’s bulletin:
The forces for good in wonder surround us,
Through faith and peace they’ll guard and guide.
And so these days with you I’ll live,
With you, my friends, a new year abide.
And ends with:
The forces for good surround us in wonder;
They firm up our courage for what comes our way,
God’s with us from dawn to the slumber of evening,
The promise of love at the break of each day.
“Imagine that.”
When it comes down to it, we have an odd task … to imagine an odd God … and an odd world, a world charged with the presence and the reality of God!
It’s not so odd to imagine the creator …
Or even the God of Sinai clouded in smoke and fire …
It’s not too odd to imagine the God who smashes the siege works of His enemies, or for that matter, takes His own people into captivity …
We can imagine such things – these are images of power and mastery, control and conquest … images we understand … images that govern much of our world.
But when we come to Bethlehem … God has taken a deep breath, changed courses … comes to us in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger … no crib for a bed.
Paul the Apostle writes forty years later:
He emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form, He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross (Philippians 2:7-8).
An odd God … a very odd God.
The poet John Donne wrote:
“Twas much that man was made like God before,
But, that God should be made like man, much more” (Holy Sonnets, #11).
How odd of God …
A very odd God …
And that’s the good news we celebrate … the world is full of ordinary gods who snort and sneer, who conquer and contend … and God said, “Been there, done that.”
“And no more!”
From the flood to the cross … a huge change in the character of God …
To Noah’s world, God said, “I’m tired of you, and I wash my hands of you … let it rain, let it rain, let it rain.”
But the flood didn’t work … all that anger and all that death, didn’t work … never does, never will.
Even God had to learn a few things along the way!
So now it’s Bethlehem …
“O little town of Bethlehem,
How still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by,
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting light;
The hopes and fear of all the yeas
Are met in thee tonight.”
A very odd God indeed.
A virgin birth … how odd of God.
Joseph, bewildered and confused … ready to put Mary aside for her indiscretion …
But in the nick of time, an angel comes to Joseph in a dream …
How odd of God … to come to our world this way … but didn’t the prophet long ago say to us: a young lady, a virgin, shall conceive and bear a son … and his name will be Emmanuel … God with us?
So Joseph took Mary as his wife … when the boy is born, Joseph names him Jesus … Jeshua … Joshua … Joshua who fit the battle of Jericho … Joshua who led the people across the Jordan into the Promised Land … Joshua, Jeshua … in the Greek language: Yesus - Jesus.
How very odd of God!
Matthew ends the gospel 28 chapters later with a simple task and a profound promise:
Take this odd God and tell the world … in every nation, make disciples … no barriers, no boundaries – everyone deserves to hear about the odd God …
And you’re not alone in this endeavor … “I am with you always, to the end of the age, till the work is done, and all is made new.”
Imagine that … a very odd God! Amen!
