A dead end.
Stuck in a big way.
No way out.
Nothing can be done.
Time to call it quits.
Night after night without sleep, awake worrying, rearranging all the pieces of a life’s puzzle, and they never all fit together, there is no way it can work.
Until.
Until a blessed moment of sleep, in that vulnerable place of dreams where anything can happen, where all the barriers are down, we are visited, a way out becomes clear, all the pieces come together.
In the place of dreams, sometimes the Lord can speak, sometimes that is where we are open to the new possibilities that God brings, a new thing, a new creation, a way out, a way through, the dead end becomes the beginning of life.
God’s dreamers.
When they arrive it means something is about to happen, the impossible suddenly becomes possible, what was dead rises to life.
Joseph.
There is more than one Joseph in scripture.
They are both God’s dreamers. The people of the Book, when they hear that name, they know something is up, God is intervening, things are about to bust wide open.
That first Joseph, the son of Jacob, with his coat of many colors, he dreamed all the time, his brothers were jealous, betraying him and selling him into slavery. The dreamer ended up in Egypt, high up in the administration, he prepares the land for famine, he saves civilization, and he saves his own family, the people of God. The dead end of jealousy, betrayal and slavery became the source of salvation. God does things like that. The Lord finds the dark places of pain and brings light and hope that become a blessing to many.
Another Joseph, another one of God’s dreamers, the Joseph we hear of today in Matthew’s Gospel. His father is named Jacob as well. That means that something is going on, that history is about to repeat itself. That is all we know about this dreamer.
And then we hear that he is engaged to be married to a young woman, named Mary, who he then discovers is pregnant with someone else’s child.
Stuck, the relationship was over, beyond salvage.
What to do? A quiet breaking of the engagement and returning her to her family.
And then the dream.
An impossible dream, not like the other Joseph with his premonitions, this Joseph is a dreamer of a different sort, a visit from a messenger, an Angel of the Lord, no strange symbols to decipher or analyze, just the blunt force trauma of a message from the Lord God of the Universe.
Stay together.
Do not leave her.
The child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
You will name him, Jesus.
He will save his people from their sins.
There is nothing quite like simple blinding clarity, it is such a rare gift.
Joseph thought this was a dead end, and then he was suddenly on an adventure, he would have to run for his life to protect his family, there would be strange visitors from the other side of the world, he would have to leave the country.
And there would be other dreams, other messages, as God continued the plan of making a way out to save us from the power of our sins, all those dead ends that we are stuck in, in those dark places God is bringing light and hope, and Joseph named that light and hope: Jesus.
When God’s dreamers show up, things always bust wide open, making a way in all the no ways that pin us down.
Prepare for an adventure.
We will meet strange visitors.
Get ready to run, get your passport ready.
Who knows where we will end up when we are suddenly freed from our sins.
The exodus is beginning.
God’s dreamers.
When they arrive it means something is about to happen, the impossible suddenly becomes possible, what was dead rises to life.