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This Advent Season we are exploring God’s Dream. The Advent Season is the season of dreams. The whole world looks forward “with groaning” for the coming of the one who has been promised from beyond the beginning of the world.

A dream is a crack in the human consciousness through which the Holy Spirit makes God’s purposes known. In the book of Exodus the Lord says,

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

The prophet’s Israel dreamed God’s dream. They shared those dreams with the generation. In difficult times, their dreams inspired hope. In times of abundance, their dreams reminded a faithful people to remember the source of their fruitfulness in God’s promise and to care for those struggling in their midst.

Last week we remembered that the Bible is a book of Dreams. It tells the story of men like Jacob and Joseph who had the courage to dream God’s dream. Jesus planted in the hearts of his disciples, God’s dream – the Son of Man descending on the clouds to bring to fi nal completion God’s covenant Promise to Abraham: to bless him, so that through him all the nations of the earth would be blessed.

In today’s gospel we hear yet another dream. This one is from the book of Prophet Isaiah. While in exile in Babylon, as a slave whose city had been destroyed by an invading army, while fellow slaves grieved the loss of their homeland and felt abandoned by God, one prophet has a dream.

Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight
Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked way shall be made straight,
and the rough way made smooth;
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.

Today’s gospel taps into that dream and introduces the world to the work of John the Baptist who prepares the way of the Lord. John’s ministry was not without its challenges.

He confronted religious folk who had lost the focus. He confronted civic leaders who had lost their integrity. He extended his hand to the lost and the lonely and those whose lives had become unmanageable on a crooked way.

To each he had one message:

“Repent.” Be open to the transformation of your life and the life of the whole world. For God’s dream has been made flesh in the midst of you. And all flesh is about to see the salvation of God.

Dare to dream God’s dream, and then prepare the way of the Lord. And you to will see the salvation of God.