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Okay, let us stop this scene. - Okay, done. - Hope again, hope reshaped, the dead lives. But not always with a resurrection from the sweaty bedsheets of the HCU ward. Often, what is dead is dead, and you can do CPR until your lips are bleeding cherry-red. And you can cry out in prayer to God until your throat feels like you have been swallowing knives. Nothing happens, and you cannot do anything about the nothing happening. The life support is unplugged, the corpse is rolled out, and life must go on with broken memories like a shattered picture frame lying all over your heart floor.
What I am writing about could be about any number of situations in our lives. The process still applies. The questions remain. What am I to do? What is right? What is wrong? Who am I to listen to? How do I listen to God's voice among all the other voices? When am I to give up? Should I ever give up? Where is God in this? Why? What can be done? Did I mistake God's direction back there? The questions can go on and on, and on. And one more query: Is there still hope? And one more: If so, what light will I see it in, for right now I only see - no, feel darkness?
Is there still hope? Always, with Grace. Always, even if hope takes a different shape, takes on a different light. Out of the ashes of the ending can arise a new, even better beginning. The desert can have quail showers and manna rains, and any rock can just start flowing with a Spirit stream.
We could multiply examples of biblical characters who stood, asking, “God, why? This is not how I thought we planned it. Certifiably, it was not how I planned it?" But let us think of Joseph. That is right. Not Mary, not Peter, not Paul, not Isaiah, not Moses, not King David. Rather, carpenter Joseph, and step-papa of cosmic Papa, God – that is right, God. - "You mean God had a daddy?" Yea! Joseph was his name, and from a little no-name town.
That little-known Joseph - he is almost lost in the sightings and dogmas and promises of wife Mary - (when Jesus is age 12, step-pa of God drops right out of the pages of Good News): major character, or minor, he is the earthly dad of Jesus, but gets almost no space in Scripture. But, wow! What space he gets is like a twenty-pound infant erupting from a tiny little room called Womb. What amazing things Grace does in the silent confines of darkness – out of our awareness, and if not, we would likely tamper with it and mess it up before it had a chance to be slapped on its little fanny.
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Now, when we read Scripture, sometimes one or two or three words yell: “Hey! I'm really important! Stop! Look! Listen!” So, let us stop, look, listen: “do not be afraid to take Mary.” Okay, why afraid? Well, imagine you go home to your mom and pap, deeply devout mom and pap – and you can still hear your dad saying, pointing that finger at you - “Boy, don't you ever bring dishonor to our family by getting a girl pregnant. If you do....” - You get home. What do you say, “Hey! I've got some great news. Mary is pregnant!” Afraid? Yea, that beauty you love will be scorned and likely no man worth much will have her, if you do what you are "supposed to do" - get rid of her. Scared? Yes. If you marry her, then, can you already imagine the whispers that will whisk by your ears like a diabolical breeze everywhere you go in town. Afraid? Yes, afraid.
There stands Joseph, alone, like us. “I didn't plan it this way. Why? Why, God, did you let this happen?” And he, like us, plans to do the "logical" and "nice" thing - he'll just get rid of Mary quietly, not even seeking in any way to hurt her or bring shame to her. Nice guy, Joseph - right?
But he hears, “Don't be afraid.” God does not leave it at that. God tells Joseph why he is not to fear, “Hey, Joe! I'm doing something here. Just give it time. You will see.” And Joseph did. He obeyed. He went beyond the doubts, the confusion, the disappointment, the voices - and did one simple thing that changed his life, Mary's life, and history: “Obeyed.”
We are all Joseph. We come to moments in life when we face the greatest obstacle to obedience: no, not hate; no, not common sense; no, not pride; no, not stubbornness; yes, fear. We can fear doing the right thing, and more so when all the fear mongers around us or saying - or screaming - “Don't obey.” And sometimes it is not easy to decide just what obedience in a situation means, and when fear itself has within it a sage cautioning us: but Joseph could tell us one thing - "Obedience to God will never be the fruit of the Fear Tree."
Max Lucado speaks of our being like Joseph, when we are challenged to see hope take on a shape of obedience, rather than fearfulness:
What about you? Just like Joseph, you can't see the whole picture. Just like Joseph your task is to see that Jesus is brought into your part of your world. And just like Joseph you have a choice: to obey or disobey.
*Cast of Characters
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