In a comment on a previous post a parishioner confessed confusion over the meaning of Advent.

“My nearest and dearest would not contend,” she says. “That I am the brightest light on the Christmas tree, but I am just not getting the concept of Advent being the time of dreaming God's dreams.”

Well, the truth be told, this parishioner is one of brightest lights on my Christmas tree. So if she is confused about the meaning of Advent – mea culpa.

She did a little research in her effort to make a clear connection between Advent and my recent discussion on Advent as the “Season of Dreams.” She discovered what anyone would in a basic treatment of Advent. The Advent Season points to two events: The first coming of Jesus (the babe descending from his mother’s womb and wrapped in swaddling clothes), and the second coming of Jesus (the warrior/king descending from Heaven and wrapped in clouds).

So far so good.

But there is a third event to which the Advent Season points: Jesus’ continuing presence among us, the resurrected Lord descending in the power of the Holy Spirit and wrapped in the faithfulness of believing people.

The Advent Lectionary lifts up the voices of prophets who dreamed the mystical working out of God’s purposes in the human experience.

This is consistent with what the Lord said to Aaron and Miriam in the Wilderness with Moses in Numbers 12:

When a prophet of the LORD is among you,
I reveal myself to him in visions,
I speak to him in dreams.

On the Day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit filled faithful people gathered together waiting to be filled with power from on high. The Holy Spirit continues to fill faithful people today. For what purpose? In the Book of Acts, chapter 2, the Apostle Peter’s appeals to the prophet Joel (another dreamer) for an explanation:

And it shall come to pass in the last days, says the Lord,
That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh;
Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
Your young men shall see visions,
Your old men shall dream dreams.

We receive the Holy Spirit in order to dream God’s Dreams. Dreaming God’s Dreams, our minds are transformed. This is what faith is all about. The word repent (in Greek metanoia) means to have a transformed mind. Remember Romans chapter 12:

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

The basic call of the gospel is to “repent and believe the good news.” That is, “be open to transformation.” For the prophets who heard God speaking to them in dreams, transformation of the mind begins with dreaming God’s Dream.

Christmas is the Season of the Incarnation. We celebrate the Eternal Word made flesh, first in Jesus, afterward in the power of the Holy Spirit among us.

Advent is the Season of Dreams just as the prophet Joel anticipates. Being filled with the Holy Spirit we are empowered to dream God’s Dream, and dreaming God’s Dream the Eternal Word will be made flesh through us.

We can track God’s Dream working its way through human history. In our own nation’s history, Samuel Adams and Thomas Jefferson dreamed God’s Dream. For their generation it was a dream of liberty and freedom from British tyranny. For the generation of the Reformation it was a dream of personal liberty and freedom from oppressive structures of the medieval church. For the generations following the Civil War and Jim Crow, it was a dream of liberty and freedom from prejudice, bigotry and racism.

People who are filled with the Holy Spirit continue to dream God’s Dream. The Advent Season encourages us to keep dreaming so that the Eternal Word can continue to be incarnated in our generation.

If Christmas is to be something more than a commercialized, sentimental romp through the wilderness of a department story, we must have the courage to dream God’s Dream as well.

John the Baptist was the voice crying in the wilderness in his generation, “Prepare the way of the Lord.” Whose voice is crying out in the wilderness of our generation? Who has the courage to dream God’s Dream today?

The Advent Season calls people of faith to dream God’s Dream. Dreaming God’s Dream our voice rises above the empty loneliness of our age: “Prepare the way of the Lord.”