The Dream of Awakening

Second Sunday of Lent, Luke's Transfiguration.

Lately, I have been dreaming of my father, Franklin. My dad passed away about 10 years ago, before we moved to Kansas. I miss him, especially on Sunday nights when we used to talk on the phone. There is so much about Kansas I would like to talk with him about. He’d want to know about the crops, the church, and the people. Someday again, I hope to talk with Dad. He will want to know about you and there will be much good to say.

I bring up dreaming because we all dream. The word dream can have several meanings. It can mean the images we have during sleep. Dreams also are the aspirations and hopes that we carry while waking. It is good to have dreams, asleep or awake.

In Scripture, sleep and dreams are signals. Sleep, for example, often is a sign of spiritual need. If one is found sleeping, it often implies a weakness of faith. Think of Joseph being woken from his troubled sleep by an angel who tells Joseph not to doubt his beloved Mary. Or the apostles in the Garden before Jesus arrest, in their weakness they cannot stay awake. This foretells their abandonment of Jesus on the Cross.

In Scripture, dreams and dream-like scenes are doors into the Divine. In scriptural dreams, something powerful and eternal is about to become immanent. The person who awakens to a dream, is supernaturally awake. They are enlightened.

This is the case with our Genesis and Gospel readings. If you remember, Abram prepared a sacrificial banquet for the Lord. And then when “the sun was about to set, a trance fell upon Abram, and a deep, terrifying darkness enveloped him.” Abram is in a sleep-like state. Abram is awaiting enlightenment.

Similarly, in the Transfiguration Luke tells us, “(Jesus is) conversing with Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of Jesus’ exodus that he was to accomplish in Jerusalem.”

And then we read, “Peter and his companions had been overcome by sleep”. Their sleep is Peter’s outward sign of his inner spiritual weakness. The apostles, like us, need to be awakened.

In both stories, what comes next is dreamlike. For Abram, out of the darkness comes a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch that passes through the sacrifice making a covenant with Abram. Abram is changed by this experience and is given the new name Abraham.

The apostles awake to see Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. The three are otherworldly figures of dazzling white who recede dreamlike again into a cloud. The vision leads the apostles to someplace new, and they fall down in worship.

Friends, we are on a journey through Lent. The church intentionally creates Lent as an Exodus journey to take us from darkness and sleep to the bright dreams of Glory. The Exodus themes are strong in today’s scriptures. In Genesis, God is making a promise to be with Abraham as an ally to take his people down into Egypt, make of them a great nation, and then deliver them again. The smoking pot and flaming torch prefigure the pilar of fire and of smoke that led the Israelite in their Exodus from Egypt.

In the Gospel, Moses and Elijah talk with Jesus about his “Exodus”. This is the Cross. We are being led through Lent to the Passover of the Cross that will deliver us to the dream of salvation.

But dreams are tricky. Both those that we have in sleep and those that we create for ourselves as we live. Neither are quite true, but they truly capture something true about our experiences and hopes.

Recently, after a dream of my dad, I awoke remembering the last time Dad was able to travel with me and Mary. It was our daughter’s college graduation. It had rained the night before. And it was as if the whole world was washed and dazzling in the sunlight. After our daughter’s graduation, I remember being so grateful to my parents for the wisdom and love they gave to me as an adult. I was determined to do the same for our grown children. It was a dream. Some I get it right. And sometimes, like Peter, I am asleep at the switch. But the great thing about dreams is that they remain and you can come back them again, especially in Lent.

We all have those peak moments when everything seemed clearer. We are awakened to what is possible if we open ourselves to the God’s grace and are sincere in following in faith. Openness and sincerity are important. Last week, in Luke Gospel, we were reminded that trees are known by their fruit. We must be the just tree that grows with truth and fairness. To have a dream and pursue it deceptively or unjustly, is to grow a twisted tree that will bear only bitter fruit.

Friends so much of our life is engineered to put us to sleep without dreams. We are made sluggish by drugs, by anger, by our televisions, our social media scrolls, our 24/7 news. Individually, they are not bad. It is just that we often use them to deaden our waking and in doing so we miss out on our dreams. This evening, take a few minutes for Lenten prayer. Consider what we need to do to moderate these things to their proper place. And then do it.

We do not make this journey alone. The promises to Abraham and the disciples are still with us in the Eucharist. In the crucifixion, we enter into death’s sleep with Christ. In Easter, we awake to our Savior’s dreams of Grace.

Set aside the sleep of anxiety. Awake to the dream of Christ’s joy.