Mt 1:20   But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.”

   

In these last few days before Christmas we're going to focus entirely on the Christmas story. Yesterday we observed the quandary of this ‘good guy', Joseph. He had determined to quietly ‘divorce' his young fiancé. He just can't handle the story she tells him, it's not possible, it's never been heard of before. The trouble with God's activities is that in respect of us they are always unique, they've never happened before, and so we so often struggle with what seems to be happening.

 

So Joseph is struggling to do the right thing, but actually he doesn't know what the right thing is – but he doesn't realise that yet. And then he dreams. Joseph does a lot of dreaming and what is incredible about this young man, is that he believes what he dreams. If we started having prophetic dreams would we believe what we were dreaming? Could God speak to us like this? Why didn't he send the angel directly? I don't know, but He didn't. For Joseph it was to be dreams. Perhaps the Lord simply knew that Joseph was a simple believer and that's all he would need. So he gets a dream that tells him that what Mary has said is true. The cynics would say that this was wishful thinking, that deep in his heart it's what he wanted. Maybe, but he's convinced it is God. This is a God dream, and if God has said it then…. well watch this space!