How do visions become reality? At this time of year we have an abundance of them read to us mostly from Isaiah, and an even greater abundance of them from sentimental holiday films and music. Is it all just wishful thinking? I keep going back to the gospel stories to be reminded of how Isaiah’s vision of the kingdom of God kept breaking into this world in startling reality with every word and deed of Jesus. That breaking in did not flood the entire globe, but it did bring the renewing water of life into the parched places of a person here and a person there and sometimes to whole crowds and villages. It was, it seems to me, the necessary, sure and certain sign that the visions of Isaiah, and even those of rank Hallmark sentimentality, are visions of a reality that is already partly here with more to come in God’s good time. I am also reminded that it is the gathered church that is to continue as the body of Christ going about the business of bringing reality to the visions in the places and among the people where we live. We are not called on to bring the reality of the kingdom of God to the world. We are called on to bring it into the places that we touch and the places that touch us. If every follower of Christ did that, the whole world would indeed be touched by the inbreaking of the kingdom of God.
these words on visions reminded me of something i read about mary:\”mary know that some things are so outrageous that sometimes we have to talk about them as if they have already happened in order to believe they could ever come about. hope starts small, even as a seed in the womb, but it feeds on outrageous possibilities.\” maybe that\’s how visions become reality…by treating them as if they have already happened, perhaps?