God has a dream. He has a dream of a people with whom can have a relationship of great intimacy – a people who can commune with Him and even be co-workers with Him in sustaining that which He has created. And so, to bring that dream into fruition, God works – He creates. He creates a planet that can sustain the life of the humanity He wants to create – a planet with water and vegetation and animal life. He creates a solar system to support the cycle of day and night and season that ensure life on the planet. He creates a universes beyond which humanity will ever grasp. And in His incredible creative power He creates through His spoken Word – ”Let there be light” He says. And there is light.
And once the planet and the universe is able to sustain His dream – the life of the humanity He wants to create God creates out of the dust of the very substance of the planet, the dust of the planet a man. And He gives dominion and responsibility over the planet. And then, He creates again – from same substance of the man – from the very being of the man God creates a companion for him – a woman. But, and we all know the story, the very pinnacle of God’s dream and creation, with profound arrogance rebels against Him, and in doing so unleash the forces of evil and destruction and death upon all God had created.
But God does not give up on His dream. And so God chose to grace this little, fragile planet to save it – to save it and the entire of His creation because when humans in their profound arrogance chose to follow their own ways instead of God’s they unleashed the very forces of destruction and alienation upon all God had created. He comes to this little planet so save the people He so lovingly created who inhabit it – for whose very existence He created the planet, but who are thoroughly bent on self-destruction. And He comes to save the planet from the humanity He placed on it and the very planet itself from total destruction. He comes with a new dream – to redeem the world – to pay the price – to free the whole of creation from its bondage to evil and death. And He comes with a dream to reconcile all that He created back to Himself – people and planet and universe.
Through the Son, then, God decided to bring the whole universe back to himself. God made peace through his Son’s blood on the cross and so brought back to himself all things, both on earth and in heaven. Col 1:20
Now we know that Christ came and died to achieve what no person could achieve – to pay the price to redeem you and I and this creation from evil and death, and so to open the way to reconcile the whole created order back to Himself. But God calls us, you and I, who have within ourselves new life and have personalised it in an empowering and liberating way, to be partners with Him in this process of redemption and reconciliation.
God calls us to be partners in his plan to restore His dream. And by the power of the Holy Spirit, He imparts deep within us His own dream for creation – for the redemption of creation and the reconciliation of all He has created back to Himself. That dream seeks to find its expression and fulfillment through us in so many different ways.
And it always, always, always finds its expression within us, in the movement within our spirits, within our hearts, within our thoughts to do something for the good of society, to somehow improve the lives of others, to somehow improve our community, the desire to serve the common good, to do that which benefits all. We long for and dream for a better place, a better community, a better world – A place where the marginalised and poor can be taken better care of – a place where our children can walk safely in the streets, and properly educated and be secure they could provide for themselves one day. We long for a world where our grandchildren could revel in the amazing diversity of ocean life, the abundance of natural forests and appreciate endangered species live without threat in their natural surroundings. We dream of where our professions our businesses, our abilities could be used, not to merely to provide for ourselves and our families, not merely serve our purposes, not merely to enhance our social status and sense of self-security, but to serve the common good – where we as people could be true messengers of the Good News that Christ has died to redeem all of us – the whole of creation – from evil – that we through who we are and what we do may be true messengers of hope and prosperity. We dream of where we could go move beyond the routineness and stress of everyday life and use what we do best to empower and bring life to others – of where we live lives of profound significance for others and our community and the common good.
How often have we not harboured such dreams – such hope. And how often have we not expressed such a wish. And those dreams, those wishes, that hope – are they not of God. Because they are the same as God’s dream – the dream He sent His Son into the world to make possible. And whether we realise it or not, acknowledge it or not, believe in God or not, there origin within us lies in God placing them in every human heart. But the very that the dream is there – the very fact that it is an expression of God’s dream for the world – simply means that God thinks it is possible, that it is within our abilities.
And so God gives to us a dream – His dream for creation. To each one us who have the new life of Christ gives to us, in lesser or greater degrees aspects of His dream. He gives His dream to us, that we, with Him, may bring His dream into fruition. And having placed his dream within us, God calls us to do what He did – to go into the world make the dream reality.
There is a story of a beautiful marble statue of Jesus with outstretched hands in a little French village that was damaged in the Second World War. After the war the villagers tried to restore the statue by painstakingly recovering and piecing together the shattered pieces and parts of the statue. The problem was they could not find or replace the hands of Christ. After months of soul searching and consternation and consideration they finally decided not to replace Christ’s hands but rather insert a plaque under the statue with the simple inscription, “I have no hands but your hands.” (Parables II :57) The inscription was a quotation from the words of a St. Teresa of Avila who some four hundred years before had said,
“Christ has
No body now on earth but yours;
No hands but yours;
No feet but yours;
Yours are the eyes
Through which is to look out
Christ’s compassion to the world;
Yours are the feet
With which He is to go about
Doing good;
Yours are the hands
With which he is to bless now.”
philip howarth 