“In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.” Acts 2:17, quoting Joel 2:28.
December is such an exciting month for me because it is filled with so many wonderful traditions. I have always loved the tradition of the Advent wreath. When I was a boy, we would craft our wreaths with real ground pine. The earthy smell of the pine, the brightness of the candles and the anticipation of the season combined to heighten my excitement for all that was coming.
December is also filled with culinary traditions in our family. The scent of Christmas cookies fills the air as recipes, lovingly passed down from ancestors long-departed, come alive once again on kitchen counters and baking sheets to delight and nourish a new generation. We Swedish-Americans also look forward to our traditional Christmas Eve feast of freshly prepared Lutefisk, served over boiled potatoes and seasoned with a generous dollop of butter and dried mustard. It is accompanied with homemade Korv (Swedish sausage) using a secret family recipe that has its roots in the Old Country, and everything is topped off with pickled herring and Swedish rye bread. Don’t knock it ‘til you try it!
One of my fondest childhood memories of December was the arrival of the Sears Wish Book. I would spend hours and hours poring over each page as I compiled a list of all of the toys I wanted, and I dreamed about what it would be like to receive them all. Before long, the poor catalog would be so worn and dog-eared that it had to be reinforced with liberal quantities of scotch tape. When my little brother came along, our competition for the Wish Book was so fierce that my poor mother had to eventually ask the nice folks at the Sears retail store in town to give us a second copy so that each son would have one. (She had plenty of incentive to do this, because she knew it would keep us quiet for a while!) The Sears Wish Book is long gone, but the tradition of looking at toy catalogs and dreaming has continued as Emilio has begun to do the very same thing with the ads and flyers that pack our Altoona Mirror.
A year ago, I was completing reams of paperwork in preparation for my assignment by the ELCA to a Region and a Synod. I dreamed that I might be blessed to serve in a community like Martinsburg and a parish like St. Matthew, but I had no idea if those dreams ever could or would come true. Likewise, St. Matthew was dreaming that it might one day have a permanent pastor again and wondered if it was possible. Thankfully, our mutual dreams did come true because those dreams were God’s dreams. Their fulfillment, however, does not mean that our work has ended. In fact, it has only begun. In God’s dream, God has brought together pastor and parish with the challenge of proclaiming – and living – the Good News of Jesus Christ. As part of this, God is calling us now to fill our hearts and minds with new dreams – big dreams – for ourselves, our congregation and our community.
In the flicker of Advent candles, in the twinkling of Christmas lights, in the aroma of traditional foods and in the familiar yet ever-astonishing news that the King of Kings comes to us in a lowly manger, be listening for the Holy Spirit’s whisper as God pours new and thrilling dreams into all of us. At first those dreams might seem too big, too far-fetched or too incredible. But if they are God’s dreams, then they can and will come true. So, people of St. Matthew Lutheran Church: together with God and one another, let’s dream!
Posted on
Fri, November 25, 2011
by Pastor Scott
filed under