Hope for Australia - I have a dream

Last Sunday at church, we were asked in groups to give three to five words on what gave us hope for Australia. I didn't really get a chance to speak during that time - partly because of the dynamics of the group, but also because, at first, I struggled to find anything in Australia that gave me hope.

But I've been thinking about it all week and I've finally come up with my three to five words. They're a bit different to the words that other people were providing. They gave words for three to five different things. Well I'm giving three to five words that make up a phase. And it's a phrase is borrowed from Martin Luther King Jr.

What gives me hope for Australia? I have a dream. Or to change it to three words and make it more specific to Australia: Australians have dreams.

A dream is the ability to imagine a different world. It doesn't just say 'Well this is the way the world is', it asks 'How might the world be changed?' It doesn't just accept injustice and suffering. It envisions a world without them. It doesn't look at the problems in the world and despair. It sees its potential to become something new and something better.

Dreams can become just wishful thinking. But when Martin Luther King Jr said he had a dream, he wasn't just talking about something to fantasise about. Nobody expected that Martin Luther King Jr would be happy just to close his eyes and imagine that different world. He was going to do everything he could to see that world happen.

Dream can also appear to be unrealistic. The bigger the dream, the more idealistic people are, the more likely people are to scoff at them and say 'that will never happen'. People with dreams can often seem like they're too focused on the way the world might be that they've lost touch with the way the world actually is.

But it is an understanding of what actually is wrong with this world that encourages us to dream. We don't dream because we think the world is perfect and rosy. We dream because we know it is not.

And to dream doesn't mean we expect that dream to happen exactly as we want it to. To dream is not to say 'This is the way the world will be one day'. But it is to say 'This is the way I want the world to be, so let's do everything we can to get as close to that as possible.'

And dreams take a long time to come to fruition. Martin Luther King Jr's dream has come a long way. But has his dream been realised in every aspect? I would say no. It still has some way to go.

I would say that dreams have to be unrealistic. If we're dreaming of a world that seems possible, then we're not dreaming big enough. And yes, if our dreams are too big and too unrealistic, then we may have to wait a long time to see them come true (and they probably won't come true in our lifetime). But if we make our dreams too little, then we're limiting the potential of what this world might become.

When Jesus spoke of the Kingdom of God, it sounded like the kind of big, unrealistic dream that will never happen. Two thousand years later and it still hasn't happened. But that doesn't mean we stop dreaming (and hoping) for that Kingdom of God. It's a dream worth pursuing. And dreams worth pursuing need to remain dreams for however long it takes.

Furthermore, while the Kingdom of God may not be here, we know it is coming and we know it is already happening. The Spirit of God is at work bringing us to that future and bringing that future to the present. It may sound like just a dream. But as Christians, we have the awesome privilege of being part of that dream and helping see that dream happen.

When we believe in a God who is at work in the world, bringing everything to its final consummation, then we realise that dreams really will come true. And we know they are already coming true - right here and right now.

So what gives me hope for Australia? The fact that there are Australians who are dreaming. There are Australians who are imagining a better world. And there are Australians who aren't prepared to just close their eyes and fantasise about this better world, but are actively working to make that world a reality.  

Christmas is About Hope

Every Christmas, I go on a mini crusade against too much consumerism, too much Santa, too much stress and too little Christ. It’s not much of a crusade, because I’m just as guilty of those things as anyone else. Perhaps even more so. I guess I feel that, if I complain about it, it will somehow make me feel better. So as I shout out Merry Christmas to the world, I add a PS – But you’re getting it all wrong. Despite the fact that I’m getting it wrong myself.

Christmas should be a time of love, joy, peace and hope. I’ve turned into an excuse to point out the world’s faults.

I tend to point out the world’s faults quite a bit. I love to wag my finger at the world and say you’re getting it all wrong. I don’t do this because I need a hobby and finger-pointing seemed like an inexpensive one to choose. I do this because I do really believe that the world gets it terribly wrong sometimes. We place emphasis on materialism and success and downplay love and sacrifice. We judge things by scientific facts and evidence, and lose our ability to appreciate mystery and the sacred. But anyway, this is not meant to be another post about what’s wrong with the world.

And when I say the world has got it wrong, I include myself in that. I have it wrong just as much as the world does. Christ is so important in my life – at least that’s what I say – yet there are many occasions, each and every single day, when I fail to show that he is important. I do the things I don’t want to do and I fail to do the things I should be doing. The way I live is so far from the way I actually want to live.

When I look at how the world gets it wrong, I sometimes get angry. My children are pretty used to suddenly seeing me argue with the TV, when I’ve heard something on the news that I disagree with. Now, they’ve even started doing it themselves.

Sometimes, though, I just get depressed. This is particularly the case when it comes to my own faults. It is hard to continually feel as though I am failing in what I want to do.
Sometimes the situation just seems hopeless. The world has got it so far wrong that it seems impossible they will ever get it right. The problems are too big. People’s attitudes are too wrong. And my own life seems like a never-ending attempt to live the right way and never getting there. It just can’t be fixed. Why even bother trying?


But then Christmas comes and with it comes a message of hope. I’m sure you know that Christmas is not just about Santa and presents. But it’s not even just about Jesus being born. It’s about God’s Son being born. It’s about God taking on human form. Not so that He could have a short trip to Earth for a while to see what it was like. But because we were in a hopeless situation and we needed help. We were never going to get it right. We were never going to be good enough. So instead of giving up hope on the whole human race, God did something truly amazing. He sent his Son to give hope to the whole human race.

Recently, a boy was sent for psychological evaluation, after his teacher asked him to draw a picture of what Christmas meant for him and he drew a picture of Jesus on the cross. (I didn’t see this on the news, but I was arguing with my computer for a while. Why does the world get it so – oh, forget it.) At the risk of having my son sent in for psychological evaluation too, he made the same mistake. The other day he said, ‘Christmas is not about Santa. It’s about Jesus dying on the cross.’ My eldest son laughed in his ‘I’m an older brother and so much smarter’ laugh and said, ‘Christmas is not about Jesus dying on the cross. It’s about Jesus being born.’ But I told him that Christmas is about Jesus dying on the cross. It’s also about Jesus’ resurrection. Because the ending is what makes the beginning so special. At Christmastime, we must not only remember that Jesus was born, we must remember why He was born.


I have no idea how to fix the world’s problems. I have no idea how to put us on the right track again. I have no idea if we can be put on the right track. I don’t even know how to fix the problems in my own life. If I needed to work it all out, we may as well give us hope now. For I don’t know any solutions – beyond arguing with TVs and wagging my finger at the world.
There is one thing I do know though, one thing the Christmas story tells me, one thing the life of Jesus shows me and one thing Jesus’ death and resurrection makes real in my life – When things seem absolutely hopeless, God works in incredible and unimaginable ways to replace that hopelessness with hope.


Image details: Adoration by the shepherds, by Bronzino. From Wikimedia Commons. Image is in the public domain.