Christmas 2C – By George Yandell
Where did Jesus get his uncanny knowledge of God’s wisdom? It wasn’t all book-learning from the rabbis. Even children understood clearly what the adult Jesus said when he taught. I believe Jesus learned much of his attentiveness to God from Joseph, and also from Mary. Her acceptance of the angel Gabriel opened the way for Jesus. We learn most from what our parents do, not what they say. I imagine the young Jesus learned how to be attentive to God from watching Joseph, as well as learning from Mary and his brothers and sisters, and his rabbi. But learning to trust God from dreams- that was Joseph’s contribution.
Joseph couldn’t go to an analyst to work through his dreams. He had only his heart, his trust in God, and his willingness to take action. This was the second time Joseph had received a dream visit from an angel. The first visit was when Joseph had discovered Mary, to whom he was newly engaged, to already have conceived a child. Joseph had decided to dismiss her away quietly instead of marrying her. The angel came to Joseph in a dream and told him the child in her womb was from the Holy Spirit. Joseph was to marry Mary and name the child Jesus, the angel said. And Joseph followed the angel’s instructions to the letter, and now the Son of God was born, with him the step-father.
As we hear in the gospel, an angel of the Lord again appeared to Joseph in a dream. The angel gave specific instructions to flee to Egypt. We might say in contemporary language the angel pushed Joseph to seek political asylum because his child was in threat of death squads from Herod. So Mary, Jesus and he fled by night down the coastal roads into Egypt. Think about it- the holy family was going back along the same path the Hebrews had followed as they fled FROM Egypt because they had been enslaved by Pharaoh. In Luke’s gospel Mary is visited by angels- Matthew has Joseph three times visited by God’s emissary. It seems Joseph was something of a mystic- he immediately interpreted his dreams as coming from God.
And what do we gain from Joseph’s gift to Jesus? Meister Eckhart, the great Christian Mystic, wrote: “There is a force in the soul. God’s own self is this force, unceasingly glowing and burning with all his splendor, bursting forth in a continuous, unspeakable ecstasy of joy.” Eckhart goes on, “God begets the only Son now and in all eternity within every honestly watching soul. Everything that God the father has ever given to the only begotten son in human nature, God also has fully given it to [us]. Nothing is excluded; neither wholeness, nor holy-ness; God gave [us] all, as God gave Jesus all.”
Do you hear what God has done? God spoke to a humble man and woman and re-ordered our world from their responses. Jesus has been born for us, and in us. Jesus was born into conflict and became a refugee. Our own conflicted times are redeemed by God’s Son. God offers us all of God’s love in Jesus, in the Son of God born within us. God speaks even now to us, deep within each of us. To be attentive, to be faithful to what our souls teach us is all God asks.
We are the seers, we are the ones God speaks within and from today. The world is waiting to hear what God offers. The world yearns for our dreams of life and love to become models for living. They offer us creative life and renewed spirit to care for God’s world.
In the silence of eternity, the Word spoke. From his dreams, Joseph led the Son of God into safety and manhood. From within us, the Christ speaks his word now- “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life. I am with you always, even to the end of all things. The Father and I are one.” To be attentive, to be faithful. That’s all God asks of us. Listen and respond to God’s voice. Hear it in your dreams and in your waking. Be at peace with God and God’s only Son, born in us again today.