D uring these past four weeks of Advent we have been dreaming, along with the prophet Isaiah, of a world made new. Dreaming itself does not necessarily set us apart. We all have our dreams. People in most circumstances can imagine the world as a better place, or at least imagine there is room for improvement in their own lives. The question at the heart of Advent is where we place our trust to make this world new. In Advent we are invited to place our trust in the most improbable sign. This is how the prophet Isaiah put it to King Ahaz:

“Look,”

(the word we’re used to here is “behold;” it means the same thing),

      “a young woman is with child

            and shall bear a son,

      and shall name him Immanuel.”

      It wasn’t the sort of sign that Ahaz was looking for. We don’t know much about Ahaz, but we share a lot in common. Ahaz had his dreams too. Ahaz was the king of Judah, locked in a life and death struggle between the kingdoms of Israel and Syria to his north. Isaiah is sent by God to reassure him, and to encourage him to place his trust in God.

      But Ahaz has it all figured out. He doesn’t want to trust in God, or in Isaiah’s message. He’s not interested in a sign. Instead, he places his trust in the powerful nation of Assyria, whose king wants to enter in to an alliance with Ahaz. This, Isaiah warns him, will have disastrous results, both for him and for Jerusalem. But Ahaz enters in to the alliance anyway, and the eventual consequence is Judah’s destruction.

      So against Ahaz’s inclinations, and in defiance of Ahaz’s wishes, the prophet Isaiah says to him, even though you did not ask, and even though this is not the sort of sign you are looking for, here is the sign that God offers. Look, Isaiah says, a young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and she shall name him Immanuel, which means, “God is with us.”

      It is a rather ludicrous sign. Against all the machinations of his warring enemies, Isaiah points Ahaz’s attention to a pregnant young woman. Against the powerful forces of Assyria, Isaiah invites Ahaz instead to place his trust in the birth of a small child with an odd name. Ahaz trusts in the tried and true potential of political power and military might. Isaiah invites him instead to trust in the sign of a child not yet born.

T he audacious claim of the Christian tradition is that this “sign” to which Isaiah points anticipates the baby Jesus, and that this child is still the one in whom we should place our trust. This is the improbable sign of the Christmas season in which we are invited to place our trust: That the power of God enters the world in the most vulnerable way possible. And we are invited to place our trust not in the world’s powers, but in the vulnerable power of this vulnerable God.

      Catholic theologian James Alison helps us to notice the vulnerability inherent in Matthew’s narrative of Jesus’ birth. Not only does God enter the world through the already fragile process of human pregnancy and child-birth, but is born to a young girl not yet married, and so made further vulnerable to the vagaries of the law, which would have put both Mary and her child at risk. To make matters worse, the future of this child’s life is then left hanging on the precarious balance of how Joseph will interpret a dream. A dream! Alison writes:

      How extraordinary is a power that is gentle and confident enough to enter into the practical consequences of a human act of interpretation? There is no sign that is not also a human act of interpretation, and there can be no riskier way to enter into the realm of signs. This pregnant woman is either an adulteress or a virgin blessed by God. What power is it that is prepared to trust that a human will choose the latter, infinitely less plausible interpretation, and then graciously cover over the vulnerability of his bride-to-be and allow the sign to flourish?

      Former Yale chaplain and seminary president John Vannorsdall has written in a similar vein,

      ... it seems so remarkable to me that when God comes to speak God's Word to us, that Word becomes a child. A child announced by singing, not by thunder. A child born by lamplight in silent night, rather than a Word which shakes the mountains, pouring rivers of unstoppable fire down every side. The Word becomes a child, which can be received and cannot hurt: a Word which does not make us afraid.

      He continues:

      I am prepared for the anger of God, and believe that God has a right to wrath. What is so amazing is that when God comes among us, whatever God's hurt and indignation, God comes not with violence but with love, even as a child vulnerable to our further hurt.

O f course, we also know how the narrative of this vulnerable God unfolds. Not only is the child further vulnerable to the raging insecurity of Herod, who chases the child and his parents to Egypt, but eventually to Pilate, and the crowd, and the religious leaders, and we learn just how vulnerable this God will be among us. This is the improbable assertion imbedded in this improbable sign: God will save the world through God’s own self-giving. It is on this that all our hopes and dreams depend.

      So it is important in this Advent season that we nurture those vulnerable hopes and dreams that the spirit prompts among us, dreams for a world made new grounded in the narrative of a vulnerable God. Our dreams may be fragile, but that is how the power of God is at work in our world. So we nurture our dreams, because it just may be that in our dreams, God is bringing about a new world.

      At Church of the Pilgrims, we are nurturing our dreams in two ways in this Advent season. The first is by inviting a member of the congregation to share their own spirit-inspired dream for a world made new. In so doing, we are all invited to awaken our prophetic imagination by looking at the world as it is, and dreaming of the world as it should be. The second is by receiving a special offering each week. Our offering is one small way to live in to our dreams. This week for our final Sunday of Advent, we are invited to share our financial resources to support the work of the Save Darfur Coalition, an alliance of more than 180 faith-based, advocacy and human rights organizations committed to ending the genocide in Darfur.                     ✞

       To read Pilgrim’s Advent Dreams, see: www.churchofthepilgrims.org/adventdreams.html