PAYING ATTENTION TO VISIONS

Acts 9: 1-6; John 21: 1-8

Dr. Lex Baer of our Presbyterian Counseling Centersays “Pay attention to your dreams.” Easier said then done for people like me.I tell him I often don’t dream and he says everyone dreams, you just have tofacilitate writing them down from a twilight sleep or right when I wake up. Ithen admit that I remember some dreams but don’t really find them comforting soI let them pass into forgottenness. He just smiles.  We know, for example, that in Egypt ages ago, and perhapseven now, Egyptians believed that dreams could tell the future. So we travel toGenesis 40 where the youngest son of Jacob, called Joseph, has been sold by hisbrothers to a traveling band of Ishmaelites.  They are traders who then sold him to Potiphar, the captainof the Pharaoh of Egypt’s guard. He ends up in prison (where Pharaoh also hadcast his cup bearer and head baker!) And Joseph asks them what was wrong. Theywere troubled with the meaning of dreams they had each had the night before.“Tell them to me” Joseph invites them in Genesis 40. “Interpretations belongsto God, does they not? Tell me your dreams that I may interpret them since I ama man of God!” So tell him they did: The one dreamt that he had filled hismaster’s cups with the grapes of three vines. Joseph said that meant that inthree days he would be released and restored to his position. It happened justas he said! The baker said that he dreamt he had three baskets of cakes on hishead for Pharaoh but that the top cake was eaten by birds. To that Josephpredicted that he would be hanged in three days! And it was so!! Joseph couldpredict dreams because of his connection to God. Pharaoh was most interested.Two years later Pharaoh himself dreamed that he saw seven fat cows come out ofthe Nile followed by seven skinny cows that ate the fat cows but remainedskinny. “What does it mean?” Pharaoh asked Joseph?” Joseph said what it meant:“There will be seven years of plenty, sir, followed by seven years of faminethat will negate the seven years of plenty. (Almost like the dot.com andhousing market boom has nearly been negated by the foreclosures and job lossesof the last three years.)  Dreamsmean something,” Dr. Lex said.  Andit was another Joseph, the earthly father of baby Jesus, who had revealed tohim in a dream that his espoused wife was expecting a child; later a dreamwarned the wise men about Herod and warned Joseph to take Mary and Jesus toEgypt to avoid what has been called the slaughter of the innocence. Dreamsmatter.

Sometimes dreams and visions are used interchangeably,sometimes they are different. I know of people who have seen visions of angelsin the dark of night, and others who have had a vision of a loved one who hadalready gone to heaven. Dreams and visions matter, as in both cases, messagesof comfort bathed the souls of the survivors who saw them. As I shared with thechildren, fourteen years before the wreck of the ocean liner Titanic, a man named Morgan Robinson had his novella publishedcalled Futility.  Itwas the fictional story of the largest ocean liner afloat, called the Titan,which sailed on its maiden voyagefrom England to New York and struck an iceberg on its starboard side, all ofwhich actually happened in 1912. What could make a fictional story become anon-fiction disaster?  What haveyou experienced in the ways of premonitions, or visions, or dream? Was theretruth or terror in any of them?

When a young Jew named Saul was growing up, he wouldhave been aware of the stories of Joseph, the youngest son of Jacob; he wouldhave been aware of the vision of the greatest prophet of all time—Elijah—beingtaken up into heaven in a whirlwind. He would have been told the story of Godappearing to the young Solomon in a dream. He knew such things happened,perhaps even more than our modern day world believes it happens. But there arepeople even today, who also believe in prophesies, dreams and visions. Thereare some who have experienced those events that seem to fly under the radar ofmany other mortals. But it is likely that young Saul, later a persecutor ofChristians, would never have believed the vision he would have. The one whoChristians were following appeared to him in a blinding vision: “Saul, Saul,why do you persecute me?” Jesus asked this now incapacitated man. In the daysthat followed that encounter Saul paid attention to his dream. It transformedhim; it made him into the passionate Christian he came to be. And in John 21 weare heard about John identifying a man at the side of the Sea of Galilee as theLord; no one else recognized him; perhaps they didn’t even expect to see him.But John paid attention to the vision of Jesus; it was John, who felt toounworthy to be loved by Jesus, who identified him as their risen Lord. And theirlives were, and the world was, changed forever because of that encounter.

Finally, some are puzzled by, and others are blessedby the last book in the Bible: the Revelation of Jesus Christ to John.  It is a vision; a long and sometimesdeliberately confusing vision. John needed his message to get past his guardswhile he was in prison on the island of Patmos, wanting them to consider itharmless gibberish rather than the hopeful encouragement to Christians andsubtle condemnation of the emperor that it contained. With the description ofthat vision, we have our best idea of what Heaven is like; with that vision, weknow that God will win against all human tyrants in the end. What a loss itwould be if John did not pay attention to his vision!

The Lord works in mysterious ways. Sometimes Godchooses to break through ordinary barriers to deliver a message to believersand non-believers alike; a message that will fulfill a purpose. Sometimes it isto comfort you; sometimes it is as a warning; and sometimes it is just toremind the world that God is still with us. I don’t know what to make of peoplewho seem to sense things beyond my perception. But I know that in many casessuch communications reveal information that might not otherwise have beenobtained.

“Pay attention to your dreams.” The advice has comeback with renewed meaning. What wonderful ways is God able to use our minds,coupled with our faith, to help steer the ship we call planet Earth? Let thosewho have eyes, let them see. Let those who have ears, let them hear. And let allthose who are willing, lift up and open their hearts. God may be showing youthe way, the truth, and the life again, or for the very first time.

Jeffrey Sumner April 18, 2010