Based on Acts 16:9-15, Revelation 22:1-5, John 14:23-29
Did you have a dream last night? Dream researchers have discovered that humans over the age of 10 dream between 4 and 6 times each night. That means that all of us have up to 2000 dreams every year. My favorite preacher, Frederick Buechner, has this to say about dreams in a sermon entitled, “A Room Called Remember”. Buechner writes, “Every once in a while, if you’re like me, you have a dream that wakes you up – a dream in which the shadows become so menacing that your heart skips a beat and you come awake to the knowledge that not even the actual darkness of night is as fearsome as the dreamed darkness, not even the shadows without as formidable as the shadows within. Sometimes it’s a sad dream – a dream sad enough to bring real tears to your sleeping eyes so that it’s your tears that you wake up by, wake up to. Or again, if you’re like me, there are dreams that take a turn so absurd that you wake laughing – as if you need to be awake to savor the full richness of the comedy. Rarest of all is the dream that wakes you with what I can only call its truth….”
Is there a dream that you remember that spoke a deep truth about yourself, your life or the life that you are being called to lead? A former pastor and dear friend once told me that his call to ministry came to him in the form of a recurring dream. His dream took the form of a wall that was erected in front of him. The wall began as a small impediment, and with each successive recurrence it got taller and more difficult to get over. In his dream he couldn’t get around or under the wall, he had to go over it. This dream recurred over many months, and he would tell his wife about it. After hearing his story multiple times, she was moved to tell him that he wasn’t having “just a dream” but that God was calling him to pastoral ministry and the wall would continue to get higher until he answered God’s call. He realized that his wife spoke the truth – a truth that he hadn’t been willing to accept in his waking life. When he made the commitment to follow God’s call into ministry, the dream went away.
How do we know if God is talking to us, or if it is just a dream? The Bible and insightful spiritual friends can be of great help in answering this question – as with my friend Tim’s wife. The Bible gives us more than 20 examples of biblical characters encountering God in dreams or visions, which we can use in our discernment about the truth of our dreams. We have a couple of those dream narratives in our scripture readings today. John’s dream that we know as the Book of Revelation winds up with a vision of Eden being restored on earth. John sees the river of the water of life flowing from the throne of God and the tree of life straddling its banks. The leaves of the tree of life will be used to heal the nations and there will never be another night. Many of us are counting on John’s dream coming true.
Paul, Silas and Timothy are traveling missionaries attempting to discern where God wants them to go next. Paul had a dream that told him he was not to go to the province of Asia, nor was he to enter Bithynia. Frustrated, Paul laid down to sleep and was visited in his dream by a man from Macedonia begging him to come and help them. Interpreting this as the true direction they had been seeking from God they went immediately to that part of the world. In Philippi they traveled to the river on the Sabbath, looking for a place of prayer. There they met and baptized a wealthy businesswoman named Lydia and her whole household. They stayed with her for many days and she became a benefactor.
Jesus is speaking to his disciples and teaching them things that they will need once he is gone. Jesus is planting seeds and telling them that even though he is going to be killed, that as long as they love him, God and Jesus will come and make their home with them. Further, Jesus will be sending the Advocate, the Holy Spirit to remind them of all that Jesus has said and to help them discern the direction they are to go with their ministry. We will see in the Book of Acts that the Holy Spirit will be very active both waking and in dreams, leading, guiding, strengthening and loving them.
Interpreting dreams is a risky business. Noted psychiatrists Freud and Jung were fascinated with dream interpretation and developed detailed teachings for how to identify the psychological meaning behind our dreams. Yet, there is always the possibility that it was just a dream and not some repressed emotions or psychic illness. The Bible gives us some direction when interpreting our dreams in a manner that seeks to understand how God might be using them to help guide us. The Bible teaches us to expect that God may use our dreams to communicate important truths or much needed life direction to us.
Pastor Audrey West teaches us the importance our God-inspired dreams, writing, “…How many people today have altered the course of their life or ministry as a result of a dream? Perhaps more than we know. One of my friends, a pastor, asked a Bible study group whether any of them had ever had a dream that they thought was from God or was more than ‘just a dream.’ People looked around a little awkwardly as approximately half the hands in the room slowly went up. A few more hands rose when people saw they were not alone. The pastor then asked how many had ever talked about those dreams with their pastor or with people they knew from church. Almost every hand went down….”
This begs the question, then, have you ever had a dream that was possibly more than just a dream and kept it to yourself? If so, why didn’t you have the courage to tell a trusted friend? It might be because none of us wants to be seen as “that person” who hears voices or leaves behind their rational adult selves to follow some voice within. Yet, all of us have dreams for what our and our loved ones’ futures might be. Many of us have followed those dreams to very fulfilling careers – sometimes multiple careers (as in my case). What would your life have been like had you not followed those dreams? Who’s to say that the fruit of those dreams did not come from God?
Disciples of the Risen Christ need to be always alert to how God is moving in their lives and their world. They are to be listening for God’s call – knowing from scripture that it might come through personal encounters, visions, direct conversations with God or through dreams. They are to learn from the God-interactions of biblical characters like Abram who followed God’s voice and became the father of three great religions. Like Jacob whose dream showed angels constantly moving between heaven and earth which confirmed the truth that God is alive and active in our world. Like his son Joseph who interpreted dreams for Pharoah and ultimately became the second most powerful person in all Egypt. A person with the power to save his father and brothers and continue the lineage of David. Like Joseph, father of Jesus, who had multiple dreams where God instructed him to accept Mary’s baby as his own and to leave for Egypt until the danger of Herod had passed.
These are not just old dream stories from a time when God was active in the world. The message of Eastertide is that God remains active in this world through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. Thus, we should be like my friend Tim who listened to his wife and followed God’s truth over the barrier Tim had erected between him and God. We should expect that God will come to us in as many ways as possible to lead us into the truth of God’s future for us as individuals and as the Body of Christ.
We spend 1/3 of our lives asleep and dream up to 2000 times each year – millions of dreams over a lifetime. Should we be surprised that God might use some of these to provide guidance or offer us a truth not available to our waking selves? Not at all. We should all be alert to the possibility that our sleep brings more than just a dream that is sad, absurd or scary – that it brings a true dream from God! Amen and amen!