Psalm 126; December 19, 2024; Longest Night Service
“When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream.”
Sometimes it would be nice to dream again. To close my eyes and let the world just melt away. To be transported to another place, another time, another plane of reality, where even if the things there didn’t make sense at first, they’d at least be joyous, nicer, more humorous and hopeful…
When was the last time you had a really good dream, my friends? Of something so wonderful that you had to write it down or immediately tell someone? Where it was so oddly funny that it brought out fits of laughter, and unraveled your stoic expressions into curvatures of joy?
When was the last time you dreamt like that, my friends? It’s been a while for me.
When I was younger, it felt like I dreamt more. Of things I could remember. Of things I wanted to remember.
– A swimming pool made of chocolate
– A home floating in the clouds
– A tree turning into a dove and then like magic into a flame
But now, truth be told, my dreams are something I like to avoid; as they now are mostly of things I’d rather not remember, my subconscious trying to reconcile the shoulds from the shouldn’ts.
- A misplaced comment here at work
- An inconsiderate word said at home
- Frontline visuals on social media of children dying in war
Sometimes dreaming then isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. For it can lead to greater anxiety. To greater shame. To greater guilt.
And at times dreams can also lead to a falser hope. Of a life wished for but that will never fully be realized.
Perhaps then some of us here tonight have come to this sanctuary not only to lay down our burdens, but to also give up our hopes.
That in a season which aims to be full of hope, we just can’t anymore. That as nice as it would be to escape, we must remain down here, dreamless, to deal with reality. Because even in the morning light, the night just never quite seems to fade enough.
But here’s the thing, my friends. If that is you, you also came tonight. And that’s saying something, I think. The start of something, at least. And perhaps then, you might not be as hopeless as you might sometimes feel. As sometimes I feel. But are yet wanting, like me, to dream again. Of something nicer, more hopeful, more humorous and joyous…
Such that even in this reality, you want to come to believe that there is yet a flickering light burning in the dark. In the distance. Shooting off sparks and glimmers of new possibilities like thinning shadows emerging out of allegories written in caves.
In the Gospel of John there are hints of this, and in some of our early-gnostic Christian circles, there was this belief that we are all children of God, because each of us, like Christ, are united by “sparks” of the divine. Sparks, that were there first in creation, and that persist and dance still in creation, even in these shells of our bodies, old and tired as they may be, and even in this snow-globe of our world that seems to offer little change of scenery or season.
These sparks then, though diminished by mourning, and quieted by remorse, flicker all the same and still as they always will.
For Emmanuel, the Christ Candle, is and has been lit for each of us. Such that even if our own flames have threatened to burn out, we’ll yet remain in proximity to his warmth and his light that never goes out.
Perhaps then the greatest gift we’ve all received is that by coming down here from Heaven, Jesus trapped his spark, his light here on Earth for all to see. That when he tethered our humanity to his own, there in the manger and later on a cross, he set forth a new plane of time and space, that can never ever get so dark so as to be completely without light.
That even when all feels hopeless. Dreamless. Void of meaning and purpose, we can believe that He remains with us still. Aching. Mourning. And holding our hands as we tremble in his.
Is this just a dream then, my friends? Because if I close my eyes, I see a dove with the face of a lamb perched in a tree.
Not a fake tree, with ornaments, garland, and wreaths. But an old crooked oak, well rooted in a garden, with benches and flowers, and waterfalls of chocolate and all things sweet; where from beginning to end there are Eden springs of new life emerging. Of color and humor. Of joy. And hope.
Is this a dream? Or could it be reality? Or just maybe through our faith, might it be both?
So let it be.
Amen.
